Another magic school story, albeit expertly wrought and worth planting on shelves for its cogent themes.
A hidden door in Kew Gardens leads a child to life-changing truths about herself and her family.
Having spent most of her life traveling around the world with Leila, her intrepid eco-journalist mother, 11-year-old Daisy Thistledown has acquired useful skills, from shoplifting to slingshot expertise, but not magic—or so she thinks. In the wake of her mother’s sudden disappearance in the Amazon, Daisy enters Mallowmarsh, one of a set of pocket universes called the Greenwild where magical flora and the Botanists who preserve and study them shelter from the hostile Grayside, as they call our world. Met with both welcome and suspicion, Daisy quickly fits in without losing her determination to return to the Grayside to search for Leila and goes on to play a pivotal role in saving Mallowmarsh from mysterious eco-cidal villains dubbed Grim Reapers. The author tucks in a standard-issue magical school for Daisy to attend, though largely just as a setting for occasional class encounters with viciously feral plants, and kits her out with a lively supporting cast complete with a ghost, several previously unknown relatives, and (in the role of Draco Malfoy) bully “Poison” Ivy Helix to sneer at her supposed lack of magic and deride her for being an “unlawful immigrant.” Daisy’s mother is Persian, and her deceased English father is cued White. Finely detailed illustrations by Paganelli join Baker’s equally exact botanical ones.
Another magic school story, albeit expertly wrought and worth planting on shelves for its cogent themes. (map) (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780374391379
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 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.
