A fitfully funny but ultimately underwhelming collection.
Bean offers a collection of short stories for younger readers, many following a boy who experiences wild and wacky events.
This volume pairs two different collections from the author. The first, titled Anywhen and Everywhere, includes such stories as “The Society That Did Something Pretty Funny,” about a society that decided to play a joke on future archaeologists by pretending to craft their culture around hamsters by…crafting their culture around hamsters, and “A Story,” which features the recurring character of Ralph Ralpherson, whose fear of raisins proves justified when he must battle a sentient group of dried grapes that appears at his summer camp. The second collection, titled Dogs That Walk Sideways, offers more one-off entries and entries featuring Ralph (including one involving a planned kidnapping of himself and his crush that will allow him to “rescue” her and make her feel “loved and protected”). The stories vary in length, from an extremely short single paragraph to a more typical length of around 15 pages. The uncredited illustrations that appear at the beginning of each collection are hand-drawn in a childlike style, characterized by broad strokes and stick figures colored in with markers or paint. Each story is quirky and a touch absurd, setting the tone for a quick read with some delightfully dark undertones (as in the standout “A Story With a Sad Ending,” in which a father’s pessimistic outlook on life leads him to tell his children that “Mary Poppins dropped her umbrella while floating in the air and fell to her death, that the Saggy Baggy elephant was hunted for his ivory tusks, and that Frog and Toad were captured and dissected by a high school biology class”). Unfortunately, a flat and repetitive narrative voice—combined with the extremely short length of many of the entries—results in a lack of tension and the satisfyingly developed story arcs necessary to engage readers.
A fitfully funny but ultimately underwhelming collection.Pub Date: April 5, 2021
ISBN: 9798733484594
Page Count: 201
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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