An action-packed animal tale with three-dimensional characters, dynamic plotting, and a satisfying, suspenseful struggle...
Three hares and their allies must stop venomous creatures bent on conquest in this debut middle-grade fantasy adventure.
A brutal attack on benevolent eagles King Aridin and Queen Sparra—and the kidnapping of their unhatched prince for nefarious purposes—catapults the peaceful Desert Realm into war with venomous frogs, scorpions, snakes, wasps, and bats controlled by vile lizard Hillmaken. As more and more desert inhabitants—including wild pigs and coyotes—mutate into poisonous evildoers under the influence of the mysterious Venom Stone that fell “from the heavens,” Hillmaken’s army swells. The Realm’s only hope to defeat it is a trio of seemingly ordinary hares. According to ancient tortoise Honu, brothers Nick, Cade, and Sam must risk their lives to fulfill a prophecy and prevent the “Venomous Ones” from bringing all creatures under their “cold and cruel” rule. In their quest to fulfill their destiny, the young hares encounter life-threatening dangers and unexpected (and imaginatively conceived) magical aid. Their close friend Olivia the owl has her own brave role to play in the fight, involving in part Baumann’s enjoyable strategy featuring spiderwebs. Readers afraid of creepy-crawlies should be aware that there are heaps of them here, and the author doesn’t stint on gruesomeness. In Hillmaken’s subterranean lair, reeking of death and “littered with the skeletons of various creatures he had devoured,” the pulsing Venom Stone’s function is grisly indeed. Shaped by well-timed scene shifts and smartly balanced action and suspense—and complemented by Negali’s rich, painterly illustrations—Baumann’s narrative of imperiled royals, malevolent villains, ferocious battles, a magical prophecy, and Everyman heroes gives readers of all ages ample reasons to stay hooked, despite a few rough spots. (For example, at the top of a giant mesa are “torches hung near the opening” and a “hollow” that seems in the next sentence to become a “cavern.”) Although Baumann’s fantasy animal world lacks the depth of Brian Jacques’ Redwall universe and can use a bit of polish, it is still substantive.
An action-packed animal tale with three-dimensional characters, dynamic plotting, and a satisfying, suspenseful struggle between good and evil.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5468-3595-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.
A teenage orphan enters a curious school and encounters mysteries and dangerous secrets in this first installment of a debut YA fantasy series.
Life in Croswald is about to change for 16-year-old orphan Ivy, a lowly castle maid in charge of the kitchen “scaldrons,” oven-heating, fire-breathing dragons. Fleeing the castle after a messy scaldron mishap, Ivy hops a strange conveyance that transports her to a school for potential quill-wielding, spell-casting “scrivenists.” (The author’s creative language—students are “sqwinches,” and “hairies” are lanterns housing fairies with luminous hair—is one of the book’s pleasures.) Learning that there is more to her gift for sketching than she realized, Ivy studies spells and the magical properties of inks and quills, but strange things keep happening. Why is an old scrivenist, long thought dead, working in secret? Why is the head of the oddly familiar school moving paintings to the “Forgetting Room” so that no one will remember they existed? How can Ivy get a look at a certain journal stored there, and what does it have to do with her recurrent dream? And why has Ivy drawn the interest of the Dark Queen of Croswald and her truly fearsome Cloaked Brood? The intrigue is layered with such whimsical inventions as one school lunchroom run by ghostly bad cooks and another by a jester who is best avoided, scrivenists who end their lives as tomes in a library, and small houses pulled by a gargantuan flying beast with its own weather system. Yes, there are many Harry Potter–ish elements: a school for young wand-wielders, quirky shops dealing in enchanted student supplies, eccentric characters, spells gone wrong, an evil pursuer. But Night’s blend of magic, danger, and suspense (and a touch of steampunk) is a well-realized, fresh fantasy world all its own, and Ivy is an appealing protagonist of relatable complexity. A few bobbles: Ivy seems to go without food for long stretches; the use of “effected” rather than “affected”; a professor who is both standing and perched on a chair.
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969486-5-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Stories Untold Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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