Enchantment rules: the power of story; the uses of dream and memory; and the eternal childhood question of where beloved characters live when their book is closed are just some of the skeins of this utterly winning book. Puckish humor, burnished imagination, and sheer delight in words, in telling, fill the tale of Sylvie, a princess who longs to have adventures before she gets married off. It has been a long time since anyone read the book where she, her family, and the rest of the characters dwell. Townley has it all worked out with energy and grace: characters rushing about to get in their proper positions when the book is opened; the sly humor of watching some grow into their personalities and others constricted by them. A young reader named Claire picks the book up because reading it aloud seems to ease her dying grandmother. In Claire’s dreams, Sylvie discovers other places besides her own story to explore, some beguiling, some terrifying. But as Claire grows up, she dreams less and less of her favorite book, especially after it is lost in a fire. Sylvie and the other characters must find other places to live among Claire’s forgotten memories, and they are led by a girl with Claire’s grandmother’s dark blue eyes. When Claire herself lies dying, her daughter who remembers the story, and writes it down so that Sylvie might live on. With inspiration from Lewis Carroll to The Truman Show and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Townley has created that most impossible thing: a book beloved from the first page. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-84324-0
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Richard Jackson/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic.
A middle schooler discovers both up and down sides to being able to foretell the future.
Members of the Cleary clan in alternating generations have always been granted predictive powers on their 4,444th day of life, and Celia has been eagerly looking forward to her first vision—until, that is, it comes and reveals that cute, quiet classmate Jeffrey is slated to die in a hit-and-run. Weighing her horror against her wise Grammy’s warnings that fate is inexorable, she contrives a way to head off the accident…only to foresee another fatal mishap in his future. And another. By the time she’s saved his life five times in a row, she’s not only exhausted, but crushing on the hapless lad. (As, unsurprisingly, he is on her.) Reintgen generally keeps the tone of his series opener light, so even after Celia discovers that there’s ultimately a tragic price for her intervention, the ensuing funeral service is marked by as much laughter as sorrow. The author surrounds his frantic but good-hearted protagonist with a particularly sturdy supporting cast that includes gratifyingly cooperative friends as well as her Grammy and loving, if nonmagical, mom. There don’t seem to be many Cleary men around; perhaps that and certain other curious elements, like a chart listing particular Cleary specialties with names such as Dreamwalker and Grimdark, will be addressed in future entries. Main characters read as White.
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-357-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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