An engrossing portal fantasy that delivers adventure and suspense.
“The whole point of magic doors is to go through them to somewhere else.”
In this graphic adaptation of Wilson’s 2007 novel, Henry York is sent to stay indefinitely with his aunt, uncle, and cousins Penelope, Henrietta, and Anastasia on their farm in Kansas. Henry learns that ever since their grandfather died two years ago, the door and windows of his room have remained mysteriously stuck shut. Asleep in his attic bedroom, Henry is awakened by a thump on the wall that knocks off some plaster, revealing a door with two combination locks. Henrietta, roused by the noise, appears, and is equally intrigued. Removing more plaster eventually exposes 99 cupboard doors of different sizes and shapes. One door the curious cousins open floods the bedroom with light, the sound of wind in the trees, and the smell of rain. Others reveal puzzling letters and a key to Grandfather’s room. When they enter and find his journal with a diagram and list of the doors and their worlds, Henrietta is ready for adventure while Henry is more hesitant. The children encounter danger—and are thrust into the midst of a battle of good vs. evil. The detailed sepia-toned panels, which convey a nostalgic, vaguely historical feeling, supply visual clues for navigating the movement between different settings, but readers familiar with the original novel will have an easier time following the story. Main characters present white.
An engrossing portal fantasy that delivers adventure and suspense. (Graphic fantasy. 9-14)Pub Date: June 9, 2026
ISBN: 9780063049512
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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A beautiful, moving mythological adventure.
In a world based on Greek mythology, a 12-year-old aspires to be a Ferryer of the dead but gets off track when she meets a Living girl who’s found her way into the Underworld.
All Senka knows is her existence on an island in the middle of the Acheron River, “smack between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead,” where she’s the ward of Charon, the Ferryer of souls. Her teacher is an enormous raven named Mortimer. After Senka, who presents white, learns the Rules for Ferryers, Charon agrees to her repeated requests and starts training her to become a Ferryer. But when an emergency leads to Senka’s being left alone, she disobeys Charon’s explicit orders, takes the boat out on her own—and quickly learns that ferrying souls is far more complicated than she realized. She encounters dark-haired, brown-skinned Poppy, whose “edges are crisp”—she’s a Living girl who will sacrifice anything to find Joey, her younger brother who died. As Senka tries to convince Poppy to return to the Shore of the Living, the two get stuck in the Underwild, a “lawless place where chaos reigns” that’s filled with innumerable dangers and shrouded in secrets. Senka’s lively first-person narration relates the unexpected friendship that forms through her shared adventures with Poppy as they face mortality and the unknown. Debut author Targosz offers readers a meaningful exploration of grief and its impact on those left behind.
A beautiful, moving mythological adventure. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781665957632
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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