Just as Daisy predicts, “the Detective Society’s most exciting adventure yet!” (train car diagram with characters, glossary,...
Crime-solving friends Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells encounter yet another murder victim while traveling from Paris to Istanbul on the famed Orient Express in 1935.
A jewel theft, a spy hunt, forged documents, a magician, a séance, and a locked-room murder—what more could the Detective Society (rising 14-year-old schoolmates Hazel and Daisy) hope for on a summer holiday? In this third of the Wells & Wong mysteries to be published in this country, Hazel chronicles how her father’s efforts to take their minds off crime backfires when one of their fellow first-class passengers is murdered, apparently by her jealous brother and possibly for her beautiful diamond-and-ruby necklace. And it’s not just Hazel’s father prohibiting their detective efforts—there is also a fellow traveler, the undercover detective Miss Livedon, whom they’ve encountered before. Disguised as the wife of a copper magnate, she’s really searching for a spy onboard. Stevens’ clever story has been constructed as a tribute to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, published in 1934, just one year before Daisy and Hazel’s ride on that same train, and uses many similar elements. There’s solid suspense, humor, and food for thought: Hazel’s Hong Kong origins allow her to notice examples of racism, anti-Semitism, and class snobbery that white, upper-class Daisy doesn’t see.
Just as Daisy predicts, “the Detective Society’s most exciting adventure yet!” (train car diagram with characters, glossary, acknowledgements) (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2218-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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