Dynamic, evocative color and movement easily carry this allegorical fantasy wherever the text is weak.
Mel, angry at adults who never listen, is pulled into a magical world where she learns she’s the Chosen One.
Chasing her cat across the rooftop of her apartment building, the bespectacled redhead falls into a neighboring home, where a white-bearded old man is taking tea with three talking animals wearing 19th-century clothing. They’ve been waiting for her, they explain eagerly, because only she can break the curses of Malcape the Magnificent, who turned young Otto into the old man Mel sees before her. Mel’s journey past animal tea parties and magical royals has illustrations that sometimes evoke Wonderland or Oz. The text doesn’t always make clear sense in context, perhaps a result of the translation from the original Italian, and many narrative elements are dropped when they’re no longer useful for the allegory. (Whatever happens to Otto’s talking-animal friends? Why doesn’t the Book of Return, which brings the dead back to life, remain important?) But gorgeous color and action are what keep pages turning, not the quest itself. Memories are rendered in sepia or black and white while the magical land of Here&Now is richly saturated. The interplay between different color schemes, sometimes within a single panel, plays deliciously with mood. The often wordless two-page spreads cleverly evoke movement or the passage of time. Some signage and sound effects are not translated, though meaning is always clear from illustration. All human characters are White.
Dynamic, evocative color and movement easily carry this allegorical fantasy wherever the text is weak. (Graphic fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30124-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Stolen magical artifacts! Kidnapped wizards! Assassinated queens! Earthquakes!
Two months after saving the magical kingdom Marnoch Mor in Dark Isle (2008), Morag and her friends must save it all over again. Marnoch Mor, a secret kingdom in western Scotland, has been a safe haven for magical folk for hundreds of years. Now Morag and her friends (the dragon chief constable Shona, the prissy dodo Bertie, the rat Aldiss and Henry, the talking medallion) have discovered a terrible new danger. A disused magical train starts them on their adventure (good thing they have a jar of Instant Driver—“just add water”), Aldiss warmly clad in "a neon-pink bobble hat." Though the safety of the entire magical world is at stake, Morag has more mundane concerns to confront as well: Her evil, positively Dursleyesque foster parents are still seeking her, and now that she's left Marnoch Mor, she's in constant danger. The set dressing here almost seems to come from a simpler time in children's fantasy: "tiny star-shaped elves" holding "little measuring tapes," a weepy dodo loudly blowing his beak with "a large red and white polka-dotted handkerchief." Lovers of wisecracking fairies and broody vampires will find this twee, but it has its own silly charm. (Fantasy. 8-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-73631-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
In this lush retelling of the Celtic tale of Tam Lin, the daughter of the Earl of March is drawn by music to the forest that has become the home of the dreaded Elfin Queen. When she picks a rose from the Elfin Queen’s bush, the young, enchanted knight who guards the bush is summoned. They dance and, of course, fall in love. To break the spell and rescue her love, Elaine must find her knight on All Hallow’s Eve and pull him from his horse—or die. When Elaine succeeds despite his fearsome transformations, the Elfin Queen is furious: “I was foolish to think that no power was greater than the queen of the Elves. I was wrong. The power of mortal love is greater!” The striking cover and bordered, romantic illustrations on flaxen paper are reminiscent of the Dillons in palette, line and use of lighting. Tamer than the virulent version by Jane Yolen and Charles Mikolaycak (Tam Lin, 1990), this does not include Elaine's pregnancy, instead relying on the artwork to picture her pining away for her love. (Folktale. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-77049-209-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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