More enchanting fun.
In this second installment in a most charming chapter-book series, Eliza once more walks through the magical fairy door for more adventures.
Eliza should be cleaning her room, but daydreams of fairies fill her head, and when she hears a strange noise from the tiny door under the stairs, she opens it—and is magically whisked through, though this time she finds herself in Goblin Valley. The hobgoblins, small creatures with bumpy green skin and big pointy ears, are agents of joyful chaos, riding wrens through the air, standing on their heads, and pranking one another and Eliza. Responsible Eliza realizes that she still needs to clean her room, but the hobgoblins are on it! Despite her protests, a horde follows her home, wreaking havoc until her room looks even worse than it did before. McDonald again sends her protagonist on a delightful journey enlivened by delectable turns of phrase, character names, and exclamations (“Potato blossoms!” “Peaches and crumbs!”). Wen’s well-placed, luminous illustrations are at their best depicting riotous scenes of the well-meaning but mischievous hobgoblins upending tranquil domestic scenes; readers will eagerly follow Eliza wherever her magical door takes her next. Eliza presents East Asian.
More enchanting fun. (Early chapter book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781536216363
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series.
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life.
Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as “the Data Set,” they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There’s room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today’s elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.)
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5729-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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