Ebulliently original.
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world?
Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving).
Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Once again packaged as a doorstopper but reading as if it’s half the length, the fourth episode in the harrowing training of teenaged Tom Ward as a bulwark against all that is evil and supernatural brings some disturbing revelations about his absent mother’s identity. Plus there are battles with undead creatures, a trained assassin who likes to use scissors, three entire clans of witches—and not just a fiend, not just some fiend, but Old Nick himself, newly re-invited back to the world and far more powerful than all other threats combined. Fortunately (if that’s the word), with help from a small but doughty crew of allies that swells with the addition of two winged, bestial vampires who turn out to be relatives, Tom pulls through; the stage is set, though, for further bloody struggles with the Devil and his minions. Dark chapter-head illustrations add a properly ominous air to the narrative, as do closing notes on each ghost, ghast, wight and worse he has met. Not recommended for beneath-the-sheets reading. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-089127-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
A likely scenario driving this eco-disaster doesn’t quite compensate for a heavy agenda and a wonderfully convenient plot twist. “Ten years from now,” five young Hudson Valley residents led by Gwen, a parentally abandoned teen hiding behind a punk persona, struggle to conduct normal social lives as dwindling petroleum resources shoot the price of gas toward triple figures, even basic commodities become locally hard to get, the United States invades Venezuela and, to cap it off, a superhurricane blasts up the eastern seaboard leaving massive destruction in its wake. How lucky it is for her friends and devastated community that during the storm Gwen takes shelter in an abandoned mine and discovers a secret, uninhabited, self-sufficient model home complete with large greenhouse garden and alternative-energy power generator! Along with this happy chance, news items and info-dumps that often read like student reports coexist uneasily in Weyn’s narrative of teen breakups and make-ups, dealing with domestic and self-confidence issues and finding ways to cope with change. This effort, though worthy, is unlikely to be taken seriously by its intended audience. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-17278-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
