A compelling speculative premise helmed by a realistic female protagonist.
Wordsmith Letta fights for the future right of people to employ language to tell their own truth.
Forde continues the post-apocalyptic adventure begun in The List (2017) with a look at the way that struggles for what is right and who wields power collide in a new world order. Now, long after the world-changing global warming event remembered as the Melting, young Letta, wordsmith of the survivors in her part of the world, is caught up in the resistance against the established order of the surviving organized city, Ark. Amelia, the current leader of Ark, regards language as something to be controlled and used only by those in power. To that end, she has removed dozens of babies from their families and created a nursery where they will be raised without language. This dark experiment with raising feral children seems to offer homage to The Giver, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Omelas, and other worlds where safety and security are guaranteed at the price of something intrinsically human. As intriguingly ambitious as Forde’s idea is, it suffers somewhat in the extensive telling of Lette’s story of danger and flight, where often the peril results from Lette’s impulsive, believable adolescent impetuousness. Fortunately she is several times saved by Marlo, the friend she hopes will return her affection. A default white is presumed; markers of color, class, and language aren’t given.
A compelling speculative premise helmed by a realistic female protagonist. (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9333-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy.
This is the moment teens Seth, Anaya, and Petra have both been anticipating and dreading ever since aliens called cryptogens began attempting to colonize the Earth: the chance to defend their planet.
In an earlier volume, Seth, Anaya, and Petra began growing physical characteristics that made them realize they were half alien. Seth has wings, Petra has a tail, and Anaya has fur. They also have the power of telepathy, which Anaya uses to converse with Terra, a cryptogen rebel looking for human allies who could help stop the invasion of Earth. Terra plans to use a virus stored in the three teens’ bodies to disarm the flyers, which are the winged aliens that are both masterminding the invasion and enslaving the other species of cryptogens known as swimmers and runners. But Terra and her allies can’t pull any of this off without the help of Anaya, Seth, and Petra. Although the trio is anxious about their abilities, they don’t have much of a choice—the entire human race is depending on them for salvation. Like its predecessors, this trilogy closer is fast-paced and well structured. Despite its post-apocalyptic setting, the story is fundamentally character driven, and it is incredibly satisfying to watch each protagonist overcome their inner battles within the context of the larger human-alien war. Main characters read as White.
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy. (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984894-80-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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