A trio of friends travel to a magical kingdom to save the day in a syrupy series opener.
Shy Summer, bold Jasmine and artistic Ellie are inseparable best friends. While helping clean up after a school rummage sale, they discover a mysterious wooden box decorated with a mirror, carved designs and glass stones. After they wipe the dust off of the mirror, a riddle appears. When the girls solve it, the box magically summons Trixi the pixie and King Merry, the ruler of their home, the Secret Kingdom (a magical world that exists alongside ours). The box was one of Merry’s inventions, designed to help him save his kingdom from his wicked sister, Queen Malice. Summer, Jasmine and Ellie go to the Secret Kingdom to stop Malice from spreading unhappiness. The evil queen has hidden six thunderbolts infused with wickedness throughout the kingdom, and the first one is planted somewhere at the palace, where it will ruin Merry’s birthday celebration. In addition to exploring the magical land, the girls must rescue Merry’s presents. In a theatrical final showdown with Malice’s forces, the girls must fill in on stage to thwart Malice’s evil plot to sabotage Merry’s birthday. The girls promise to return whenever they’re needed. Readers who can’t wait to return to the Secret Kingdom won’t have to—the second book, Unicorn Valley (978-0-545-53554-0), is scheduled to publish simultaneously. Glitter, sparkles, tiaras and magic ahoy. (Unicorn Valley preview, Ellie character profile, character quiz) (Fantasy. 6-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-53553-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Lovely and evocative, just the thing to spark an interest in the original and its sequels—and the upcoming film sequel, Mary...
Refined, spit-spot–tidy illustrations infuse a spare adaptation of the 1934 classic with proper senses of decorum and wonder.
Novesky leaves out much—the Bird Woman, Adm. Boom, that ethnically problematic world tour, even Mr. and Mrs. Banks—but there’s still plenty going on. Mary Poppins introduces Jane and Michael (their twin younger sibs are mentioned but seem to be left at home throughout) to the Match-Man and the buoyant Mr. Wigg, lets them watch Mrs. Corry and her daughters climb tall ladders to spangle the night sky with gilt stars, and takes them to meet the zoo animals (“Bird and beast, star and stone—we are all one,” says the philosophical bear). At last, when the wind changes, she leaves them with an “Au revoir!” (“Which means, Dear Reader, ‘to meet again.’ ”) Slender and correct, though with dangling forelocks that echo and suggest the sweeping curls of wind that bring her in and carry her away, Mary Poppins takes the role of impresario in Godbout’s theatrically composed scenes, bearing an enigmatic smile throughout but sharing with Jane and Michael (and even the parrot-headed umbrella) an expression of wide-eyed, alert interest as she shepherds them from one marvelous encounter to the next. The Corrys have brown skin; the rest of the cast presents white.
Lovely and evocative, just the thing to spark an interest in the original and its sequels—and the upcoming film sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, which opens in December 2018. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-91677-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A feel-good tale of a clever and determined stallion set against a well-developed landscape.
In mid-19th-century Nevada, a colt named Sky grows up to lead his band of wild horses.
Parry’s moving story follows the pattern of her recent animal tales, A Wolf Called Wander (2019) and A Whale of the Wild (2020), chronicling a wild animal’s life in the first person, imagining its point of view, and detailing and appreciating the natural world it inhabits. As Sky grows from wobbly newborn to leader of his family, he faces more than the usual challenges for colts who must fight their stallions or leave their herds when they are grown up. Fagan’s appealing black-and-white illustrations help readers envision this survival story. Sky’s adventures include forced service with the Pony Express; being befriended by an enslaved Paiute boy; escaping to find his now-captured band; and helping them escape the silver miners who’d destroyed their world. Animal lovers will applaud his ingenuity and stubbornness. Although Sky’s band has suffered serious injuries (his mother is blind), he and Storm, a mare who was his childhood companion, lead them toward safety in a new wilderness. The writer’s admiration for these wild horses and her concerns about human destruction of their environment come through even more clearly in a series of concluding expository essays discussing the wild horses, the Indigenous Americans, the natural history of the Great Basin, silver mining, and the Pony Express.
A feel-good tale of a clever and determined stallion set against a well-developed landscape. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9780062995957
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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