Full of magical adventure and heart.
Twin witches and their friends encounter magic and mishaps in this story based on a popular WEBTOON series.
When 12-year-old witch twins Dorian and Dani Wytte miss the bus on the first day of school, it’s only the beginning of their troubles; the bus has teleported to a secret location. Not wanting to fess up to the mishap, the siblings head to their Aunt Hilde’s in hopes that she’ll be their tutor for the year and not tell their parents what happened. Instead, they uncover a plot by a community of evil witches to take power. Together with new friends, including a soothsayer, a princess, and some town kids, the twins—now suspected of being traitors—must prove their innocence and get to the bottom of everything. The central conflict plays with the ideas of good and evil as well as biases and assumptions. Many of the large cast of characters grapple with self-doubts and questions of self-worth. All the young protagonists have something to prove, and together they begin to grow. Tur’s episodic and fast-paced plotting plus a cliffhanger ending will keep readers engaged and itching for the next volume. The energetic, manga-style art matches the energy of the characters, and the dramatic color palette adds to the strong sense of this witchy world. The panel-breaking compositions are fun and support the pacing. All major characters present White.
Full of magical adventure and heart. (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-46830-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Etch/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
A vibrant celebration of art’s power to console and heal.
Zora, 12, shares her mother’s artistic gifts, but when grief and guilt lead her to destroy years of drawings, the results are astonishing.
Voom is Zora and her mom’s word for the artistic impulse that bubbles up inside. After disclosing her leukemia diagnosis to Zora and her sister, Frankie, Mom promised the girls she’d beat it. Ten months later, their far sicker mom is hospitalized in Pittsburgh, where the girls share their bus driver grandmother’s basement apartment. Mom continues to be optimistic and avoid acknowledging the possibility of death. Frustrated and needing to hear a realistic prognosis, Zora uses her art to show her mother the truth of how ill she looks. Later that night her mom dies—and Zora’s Voom goes away. When Grandma Wren disappoints Frankie on her seventh birthday, Zora’s guilt-fueled anger erupts. Over Frankie’s protests, Zora scribbles out her drawings until the scribbles fight back, pulling the girls into Pencilvania, a world where each of Zora’s creations lives. Most of her now-animated drawings welcome her—except for one scribbled-out horse who kidnaps Frankie. Guided by a seven-legged horse, the Zoracle (a composite of her early self-portraits), and other charming creations, Zora sets out to rescue Frankie and rediscover the wellspring of creativity that forms her mother’s legacy. Presumed White, the humans are well rounded and believable. Pencilvania’s inhabitants, conceived with humorous, metafictional whimsy, are enlivened with copious, inventive illustrations.
A vibrant celebration of art’s power to console and heal. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72821-590-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone.
A 7-year-old descends into the Land of the Lost in search of his beloved comfort object.
Jack has loved Dur Pig long enough to wear the beanbag toy into tattered shapelessness—which is why, when his angry older stepsister chucks it out the car window on Christmas Eve, he not only throws a titanic tantrum and viciously rejects the titular replacement pig, but resolves to sneak out to find DP. To his amazement, the Christmas Pig offers to guide him to the place where all lost Things go. Whiffs of childhood classics, assembled with admirable professionalism into a jolly adventure story that plays all the right chords, hang about this tale of loss and love. Along with family drama, Rowling stirs in fantasy, allegory, and generous measures of social and political commentary. Pursued by the Land’s cruel and monstrous Loser, Jack and the Christmas Pig pass through territories from the Wastes of the Unlamented, where booger-throwing Bad Habits roam, to the luxurious City of the Missed for encounters with Hope, Happiness, and Power (a choleric king who rejects a vote that doesn’t go his way). A joyful reunion on the Island of the Beloved turns poignant, but Christmas Eve being “a night for miracles and lost causes,” perhaps there’s still a chance (with a little help from Santa) for everything to come right? In both the narrative and Field’s accomplished, soft-focus illustrations, the cast presents White.
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-79023-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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