One mirror ties the stories of eight princesses together.
The princess glut in today’s media—especially the contemporary threads of the “girl power” ones, such as the entrepreneurial Tiana in Disney’s Princess and the Frog and the warrior princesses like said studio’s Mulan and Merida from Brave—might make readers roll their eyes at another. However, the author ties this enchanting European-heavy multicultural cast of preteen royalty together through the narrative device of a confidence-boosting enchanted mirror. It all begins when the looking glass, which once hung on an enchantress’s wall, flippantly tells its owner that it knows nothing about princesses’ attributes. The enchantress shrinks the mirror to compact-size and sends it on a time- and alternate-world–spanning adventure to places coded, from the characters’ names such as Héloïse and Ellen, Leila al’Aqbar, Abayome, Tica, Anya, and Zarah, and other details, as continental Europe, War and Peace–era Russia and Paris, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and New York City. The author deftly weaves the arc of the mirror’s fantastic journey into each girl’s journey of self-discovery, from becoming a nation’s herbal healer to an anti-gentrification activist. Best of all, though the mirror is a device, it is not a gimmick thanks to the author’s engaging plot and the illustrator’s evocatively playful, full-colored drawings that border each story.
These tales are enchanting in both their realness and their whimsy . (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-324-01556-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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