A compassionate, harrowing page-turner.
Thirteen-year-old Ara, who lives within the fenced-in compound of Jupiter Station, believes that people become stardust when they die and that the outside world is a source of danger.
Ara’s days are governed by Father Jupiter’s strict Purity codes and expectations for hard work. But when a friendly girl around her age appears across the river from Jupiter Station, Ara can’t stop imagining what it would be like to have a friend, even as she remembers dire warnings from the Book of Jupiter about outsiders. A new arrival named Dia confides in Ara that her “before name” was Maria Estrada and that she has Doubts about some of the community’s beliefs. Ara’s 16-year-old brother, Leo, who’s grown close to Dia, also starts to express questions and concerns about the way they live. An initially resistant Ara begins collecting forbidden scraps of information “like a crow hoarding stolen treasures.” As Father Jupiter’s visions grow harsher and punishments escalate, Ara must decide what it means to be a loyal member of the family. Stevenson excels at conveying the cognitive dissonance Ara experiences—a complex blend of comfort, affection, and fear. Propulsive pacing and humane characterization make this unsettling story believable and hard to forget. The cosmic imagery lends the setting an eerie beauty, and the menace escalates without losing sight of the grief and guilt that accompanies questioning everything you’ve been taught to believe. Father Jupiter, Ara, and Leo are cued white.
A compassionate, harrowing page-turner. (map) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9781525313028
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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
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