by Michael Hoeye ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2001
Rare glimmers of wit aside, this tale has nothing to offer but trite dialogue, typecast characters, a plot built from lackluster set pieces and a bewildering array of odd names. After 76 pages of scene-setting, the adventure finally begins with the story of battered old chipmunk Birch Tentintrotter, a brilliant linguist who, years ago, was ruined and nearly killed by mysterious enemies after translating an ancient want ad from a supposedly-mythical Cat civilization. Inspired by new clues, Birch, joined by watchmaker Hermuk Tantamoq and adventuress/pilot Linka Perflinger (both mice), race nefarious con artist Hinkum Stepfitchler III and his intended victim, cosmetics queen Tucka Mertslin, to a lost library of the Cats, where, after predictable treachery, captures and escapes, everyone ends up about where you’d expect. Many members of this all-rodent cast appeared in a much-referred-to prequel; no doubt the series will continue until the author’s will (or money) gives out. Since it’s printed in a nearly illegible typeface, though, few readers will stay the course long enough to experience its many other faults. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-9675111-2-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2015
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and...
Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.
Broadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes.
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and flashes of hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-210495-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by RaidesArt
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by RaidesArt
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Julia Iredale
by Katherine Rundell ; illustrated by Charles Santoso ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 27, 2019
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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by Katherine Rundell ; illustrated by Kristjana S. Williams
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by Katherine Rundell ; illustrated by Emily Sutton
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