For readers who hear ghostly voices (or who would like to) Laffon dishes up an unskeptical, Gallic-flavored history of 19th-century Spiritism. While taking a stab at explaining our enduring fascination with the supernatural, the author traces the rise of widespread efforts—sparked by the mystical Fox Sisters in the United States and Allan Kardec’s seminal Spirits’ Book in Europe—to set up channels of communication with the dead through mediums, automatic writing, poltergeist phenomena and other means. She then goes on to expand the discussion with quick looks at astrology, numerology, palmistry, reading coffee grounds and other divination techniques, in both Western and in other societies. She does note that the Fox Sisters and other mystics were proven fakes but encourages experimentation as harmless and, possibly (who knows?), even fruitful. Nonetheless, Matje’s cartoon images of comic figures with thick, green, gaseous “souls” coming out of their mouths help to keep the overall tone less than serious. (further reading) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8356-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world? Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving). Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
When an eighth grader's wish that his little brother had never been born actually comes true, he's dismayed by the implications. Alec's father expects him to excel at sports; his older sister excels at everything; and little brother Stevie gets the unquestioning affection that Alec himself feels he has lost. One afternoon while he's minding Stevie (under protest) at the mall, Alec has an encounter with a bag lady who gives him a talisman that grants him just the one wish that he imagines will solve his problems. Instead, he discovers that the rest of the family is radically changed without Stevie: they may be richer in possessions, but they're poorer in mutual regard and interaction. Fortunately, he's able to reverse his wish and live more contentedly ever after. It's a promising premise, and the depiction of a boy who is chronically exasperated with his little brother and insensitive to almost everyone else's feelings, yet touchingly considerate of a bag lady, rings painfully true. Koller takes on too many issues without dealing with them in any depth (e.g., overbusy, affluent parents; the homeless); still, amusing, though lightweight. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-50150-6
Page Count: 161
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
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