A writer for adults and YAs takes a pen name for this witty, sometimes hilarious tale, punctuated with authorial asides and featuring switched babies, hidden identities, magical transformations, and allusions to literary classics. Frequently interrupting herself to slam her creative-writing teacher, apologize for putting in talking animals, etc., the chatty narrator follows Fern (12) as she is whisked away from her beige and orderly household to the book-stuffed boarding house where her real mother, who died in childbirth, had grown up possessing both a manual for shapechanging and the ability to shake characters or items right off any printed page. As she helps her still-grieving real father search for the manual before it can fall into the hands of a sinister magician known as The Miser, Fern discovers, to her delight, that she’s inherited her mother’s gift. Bode scatters the grounds with hobbits, fairies, clothed rabbits, teacups labeled “Drink Me,” and other references for well-read children to catch, assembles a cast of fundamentally decent sorts led by a preteen with plenty on the ball, and concocts a tangled plot with a clever twist at the end, plus plenty of loose threads to connect a sequel. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-055735-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
The lads who played and won the deadly Game of Sunken Places (2004) discover that the powerful alien Thusser are back to conquer Earth—and this time they’re Cheating. Brian and Gregory arrive in the seemingly ordinary town of Gerenford, Vt., to find that Gregory’s intrepid cousin Prudence has been snatched, her house is growing cat hair on its inner walls and the local woods have all been replaced with tract housing inhabited by weirdly dazed suburbanites. Plainly, all is not right. Trotting in tough new monsters to go with some met in the previous episode, the author pitches his protagonists into what soon becomes a desperate running battle that takes them (and a friendly, if talkative, giant armored troll) deep underground to a climactic face-off with the scary and multi-tentacled Gelt the Winnower. Leaving the trio plunging through an interdimensional gateway in search of help for humanity, Anderson dishes up another strange, exhausting and masterful tale—with at least a promise of further sequels. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-13882-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sailor Song (32 pp.; $13.00; Mar. 22; 0-395-82511-3): A modest lullaby sung by a mother to her child at bedtime, telling of a fisherman returning home after a long sojourn at sea. His boat doesn’t just sail into harbor; it floats through forests and over fields, climbs stony paths, and soars across the night sky. When the sailor comes through the door, it’s clear he’s returning to the family, evoked from the mists by the mother’s singing. Vitale’s artwork on wood characteristically fuses various styles for images of the little family at home and the seafarer on his journey. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: March 22, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-82511-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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