A rousing seafaring adventure about a brave girl—based, alas, on unacknowledged erasure.
A girl in the far north wants to go still farther north.
Ten-year-old Oona lives in the village of Nordlor, which sits beside a fjord that stretches to the Great Northern Sea. She wants to be a ship’s captain like her father; she wants to catch whales and see the magical creatures called nardoos that might live in the northern ocean. However, Nordlor girls and women aren’t allowed on ships at all—they’re not even taught to read. Moreover, Oona’s own family hates her. Using elements familiar from Western fairy tales (Oona’s the seventh child, the youngest, the hated one, the only pretty one) and tall tales (cats who play fiddles and go down with their ship; houses that retain characteristics of the ship whose wood they’re built from), Woods gives stowaway Oona the freezing ocean adventure of her dreams, including celestial navigation and an unexpected (and unexplained) connection between nardoos and the northern lights. Allepuz decorates the adventure with nautical sketches in the margins and some appealingly gruff full-page drawings. Unfortunately, a settler/colonialist premise underlies everything: Nordlor is in the “wild…north,” named for a “great explorer,” and explicitly “settled” by an entirely white population; indigenous people don’t seem to exist or have ever existed, while white people use whale blubber (which they also eat), seal skin, and fox fur.
A rousing seafaring adventure about a brave girl—based, alas, on unacknowledged erasure. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51524-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other.
A boy with ADHD explores nature and himself.
Eleven-year-old Jake Rizzi just wants to be seen as “normal”; he blames his brain for leading him into trouble and making him do things that annoy his peers and even his own parents. Case in point: He’s stuck spending a week in rural Oregon with an aunt he barely knows while his parents go on vacation. Jake’s reluctance changes as he learns about the town’s annual festival, during which locals search for a fabled turtle. But news of this possibly undiscovered species has spread. Although Aunt Hettle insists to Jake that it’s only folklore, the fame-hungry convene, sure that the Ruby-Backed Turtle is indeed real—just as Jake discovers is the case. Keeping its existence secret is critical to protecting the rare creature from a poacher and others with ill intentions. Readers will keep turning pages to find out how Jake and new friend Mia will foil the caricatured villains. Along the way, Bramucci packs in teachable moments around digital literacy, mindfulness, and ecological interdependence, along with the message that “the only way to protect the natural world is to love it.” Jake’s inner monologue elucidates the challenges and benefits of ADHD as well as practical coping strategies. Whether or not readers share Jake’s diagnosis, they’ll empathize with his insecurities. Jake and his family present white; Mia is Black, and names of secondary characters indicate some ethnic diversity.
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other. (Adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781547607020
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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