Threading recognizable but artfully altered fairy tales throughout, Gruber crafts a hefty bildungsroman that takes an ugly foundling child from dour innocence through an utterly hellish adolescence to joyful maturity. Discovered abandoned in the fork of a tree by the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, Lump grows up alone, in the care of a kindly, dimwitted she-bear assigned to be his nanny by the well-intentioned but very busy and distracted sorceress. He turns out to be a most disagreeable child, spoiled, selfish, quick to anger, as pigheaded as he is pig-featured, and with a cold, closed heart that refuses to acknowledge or return any kindness—even after his foster mother sacrifices nearly all of her powers in payment for his misdeeds. After several wild reversals of fortune, capped by a disastrous infatuation with a certain miller’s beautiful but empty-headed daughter, the scales do fall from Lump’s eyes at last, allowing him to mend fences with his patient mother, and to find real love with Bluebeard’s blind daughter. One of the least sympathetic characters readers will ever meet in literature, Lump is going to make many a teen, preteen or for that matter, parent uncomfortable—and there’s plenty of grist for fans of Donna Jo Napoli’s fairy tale psychodramas, too. (Fantasy. 12+)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-076164-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
In addition to the supernatural elements, Brosgol interweaves some savvy insights about the illusion of perfection and...
A deliciously creepy page-turning gem from first-time writer and illustrator Brosgol finds brooding teenager Anya trying to escape the past—both her own and the ghost haunting her.
Anya feels out of place at her preppy private school; embarrassed by her Russian heritage, she has worked hard to lose her accent and to look more like everyone else. After a particularly frustrating morning at the bus stop, Anya storms off, only to accidentally fall down a well. Down in the dark hole, she meets Emily, a ghost who claims to be a murder victim trapped down in the dank abyss for 90 years. With Emily’s help, Anya manages to escape, though once free, she learns that Emily has traveled out with her. At first, Emily seems like the perfect friend; however, once her motives become clear, Anya learns that “perfect” may only be an illusion. A moodily atmospheric spectrum of grays washes over the clean, tidy panels, setting a distinct stage before the first words appear. Brosgol’s tight storytelling invokes the chilling feeling of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), though for a decidedly older set.
In addition to the supernatural elements, Brosgol interweaves some savvy insights about the illusion of perfection and outward appearance. (Graphic supernatural fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-552-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
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