Both gripping and lyrical—a fine time-travel tale.
After time traveling to the Bronze Age, a girl must save a community and her brother in this debut middle-grade novel.
The family farm in Wiltshire, England, where 12-year-old Lizzie Greenwood lives, stands close to the remains of an ancient stone circle called the Bull Stones. Her brother, Daniel, 14, is fascinated by the circle and a nearby Bronze Age site being excavated by archaeologists. As the two investigate the area on a winter solstice evening, they’re charged by a herd of eerie bulls. Lizzie and Daniel flee between the stones—and find themselves in broad summer daylight some 3,000 years ago near a village of roundhouses. The siblings learn that the villagers are called the Horse People, and their enemy is the Bullmaster, who kills women and children and steals men’s souls for his slave army. The Horse People’s queen could stop him, but she’s been mortally wounded by a bull. When the Bullmaster seizes Daniel, Lizzie realizes she must use the stones to prevent disaster by traveling back and forth through time. Time travel is a compelling theme, and Kay handles it well in her book. Lizzie’s trips through the stones make storytelling sense, as when she gets penicillin—used on her family’s farm to treat animals—to save the queen. Lizzie herself is brave and appealingly thoughtful as she wrestles with the question of whom to trust. Her special connection to the stones helps explain her ability to understand and speak the ancient language, often a sticking point in time-travel stories (although the supposedly Bronze Age tongue is closer to Chaucer’s Middle English). Kay’s writing is another pleasure, atmospheric and poetic even when describing small details: “Sheep’s wool straggles of smoke clinging to the air.” The black-and-white illustrations by debut artist Rothaus are skillfully shaded and composed, adding to the book’s sense of mystery.
Both gripping and lyrical—a fine time-travel tale.Pub Date: March 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-910237-58-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Hayloft Publishing Ltd
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A powerfully candid and soulful account of an immigrant experience.
A Taiwanese family tries their luck in America.
In this verse novel, it’s 1980, and nearly 11-year-old Ai Shi and her mother prepare to leave Taipei to join her father in California, where he is pursuing a business opportunity with a friend. The extended family send them off, telling Ai Shi she’s so lucky to go to the “beautiful country”—the literal translation of the Chinese name for the U.S. Once they are reunited with Ba, he reveals that they have instead poured their savings into a restaurant in the remote Los Angeles County town of Duarte. Ma and Ba need to learn to cook American food, but at least, despite a betrayal by Ba’s friend, they have their own business. However, the American dream loses its shine as language barriers, isolation, financial stress, and racism take their toll. Ai Shi internalizes her parents’ disappointment in their new country by staying silent about bullying at school and her own unmet needs. Her letters home to her favorite cousin, Mei, maintain that all is well. After a year of enduring unrelenting challenges, including vandalism by local teens, the family reaches its breaking point. Hope belatedly arrives in the form of community allies and a change of luck. Kuo deftly touches on complex issues, such as the human cost of the history between China and Taiwan as well as the socio-economic prejudices and identity issues within Asian American communities.
A powerfully candid and soulful account of an immigrant experience. (Verse historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311898-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Effervescent, thrilling, and practically perfect in every way.
It’s hard living beneath the looming curse of becoming the Sleeping Beauty; even harder, in this middle-grade fairy-tale retelling, is being Sleeping Beauty’s sister.
Eleven-year-old Princess Briony loves her older sister, Rosalin. Honestly, she does; she’s just so tired of being ignored while beautiful, doomed Rosalin occupies everyone’s attention. Yet when Briony wakes up on her sister’s 16th birthday in a castle turret equipped with spinning wheel and fairy godmother, she discovers the price of being “important.” Cypess turns her talents for delicate prose and dark, twisty plotting to exploring the characters often left at the periphery. The castle servants, villagers, even fairies—wicked and helpful alike—have their own personalities and agendas. Briony is a delight: spunky, snarky, and brave enough to admit she’s scared. The other characters are equally compelling: Edwin, the clever “village dolt”; Varian, the princely hero, with secrets upon secrets; the terrifying fairy godmother; and the even more terrifying eponymous thicket of thorns, domain of the vicious fairy queen. The heart of the story, though, lies in the utterly authentic relationship between the sisters, who squabble, tease, and hurt each other—and love one another with a fierceness that absolutely demands a happily-ever-after, which this fairy tale delivers, although not one anybody ever expected. Characters read as White by default.
Effervescent, thrilling, and practically perfect in every way. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-17883-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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