A sublime, magical tale with likable young heroes leading an effervescent supernatural cast.
Siblings brave a world of mythical beings to rescue their baby sister in Salten’s middle-grade fantasy.
Late one night, 13-year-old Thomas Pinbrook spots creatures resembling goblins inside the family home. He watches them replace his infant sister, Isabelle, with a “revolting,” baby-size one of their own—it’s clearly a dream. The following morning, however, his mother is convinced Isabelle isn’t really Isabelle, despite her unchanged appearance. After doing some research with his younger know-it-all sister Libby, Thomas concludes that faeries have kidnapped Isabelle and left behind a changeling. Luckily, the kids’ grandmother Millie once encountered a fae and knows all about Faylinn, where the creatures hail from. As Millie must use her “basic” magic skills to protect Thomas and Libby’s parents from the changeling, it’s up to the siblings to cross a portal into Faylinn. This world has magic, assorted fantastical creatures, and even a winged carriage. Some of the otherworldly beings, like sidhe (lanky faerie metal workers), gnomes, and elves, prove affable and accommodating. Salten unspools a delightful, breezy adventure. While Thomas and Libby certainly run into their share of troubles, their bond is strong (the kids occasionally argue but it’s never serious; there’s no doubt they care for one another as well as for the baby sister they’ve vowed to save) and their irresistible allies are abundant. The narrative practically overflows with familiar mythical characters, including pixies and mermaids alongside less-friendly goblins and trolls. Others may be new to some readers, from a rideable, furry pooka (a creature that takes on many hybrid forms) to a terrifying amarok (a huge, wolf-like, yellow-eyed beast with razor-sharp teeth). Salten’s prose shines throughout, especially when describing Faylinn and its seemingly endless forests, vast rolling hills, and a palace room “made of clear glass, with the sparkling water from the palace’s moat flowing underneath, giving the illusion that they were walking on water.”
A sublime, magical tale with likable young heroes leading an effervescent supernatural cast.Pub Date: March 19, 2025
ISBN: 9798992801217
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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