A longish but high-spirited read with a powerful young hero.
In this debut fantasy, a boy who is bullied at school gains confidence and acceptance in magic camp.
Fifth-grader Ezekiel Raroso has magic in his blood. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know this, and when strange things happen around him—the disastrous eruption of his science project, for example—he starts thinking of himself as a weirdo. Ezekiel has a few friends at school, but for the most part, he is shunned and bullied. His loving family has never told him the truth about his past—not even when Ezekiel’s powers become too strong to cover up and he’s sent to magic camp. Camp Strange, as Ezekiel dubs it, is for Faerman children—what the outside world would call fairies. Ezekiel’s ignorance makes him an outsider here, too, at first; but his good nature allows him to make friends with other Fledglings (first-year campers), and he soon begins to enjoy himself. He even sprouts wings. Camp Strange, in fact, is the best thing ever. But there are sinister happenings behind the scenes: rumors that the Hematites (dark, wing-stealing Faerman) have returned. Will Ezekiel and his friends survive their first camp? Perez follows squarely in the footsteps of J.K. Rowling—from Ezekiel’s unmitigated bullying, dark legacy, and natural aptitude for both magic and flying to such facets as magical houses and cuisines and the camp’s bearded Magnus Magister. But Ezekiel is a less hotheaded 11-year-old than Harry Potter was. Ezekiel’s most prominent quality is his empathy, and this, more than anything, forms the crux of the book. He and his friends are distinct characters with their own idiosyncrasies. For all their excited companionship and adventures around the camp, though, what comes across most is their awareness of one another’s feelings. Although the novel has flaws—most notably a danger element put too easily out of mind, explored more as historical backstory than immediate threat—Ezekiel and the others are strong and likable enough characters to compensate. All told, middle-grade readers should approve.
A longish but high-spirited read with a powerful young hero.Pub Date: March 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68433-251-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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