A marvelous tale that draws on classic influences yet still feels fresh.
Dahman and Digard offer a feminist take on the classic Bluebeard story.
Everybody knows that the forest beside the river is dangerous. Still, wood needs to be cut, so ferrywoman Leina takes passengers back and forth. Leina’s shy, but she grows close to a young man named Oren, and she becomes disturbed when he disappears into the shadowy woods. Not long thereafter, a human-size toad named Mr. Spadefoot appears and offers Leina a meal in his home. When she agrees, they dine, and then he leaves her with his keys, saying that she may go anywhere except the room with the black door. The inevitable ensues. While the plot isn’t wholly dissimilar from The Dark Wood of the Golden Birds (2026), a posthumously published tale by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Ofra Amit (the woods in both tales follow the same rules), Dahman and Digard’s eloquently crafted story adheres more closely to the limitations and trappings of classic fairy tales, as when Leina outsmarts Mr. Spadefoot in a game of wits. Spadefoot’s vitriol comes from an understandable place, but his cruelty to the innocent is unacceptable. Meanwhile, Sardà fills her pages with patterns and images straight out of M.C. Escher. In her hands, Spadefoot’s world is equal parts threatening and alluring, and readers will undoubtedly double back to experience it again. Leina and other human characters have paper-white skin.
A marvelous tale that draws on classic influences yet still feels fresh. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781525315800
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
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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