by Ru Xu ; illustrated by Ru Xu ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 29, 2019
An action-oriented closer, conventionally tidy at the end but distinctive for its richly imagined world.
Rounding off a tale begun in NewsPrints (2017), budding journalist Blue continues to search for her robotic friend, Crow, as the long war between Goswing and Grimmaea comes to a head.
Just 17 and blind, but determined not to appear weak, Corazana Lina, newly crowned queen of Goswing, lays a fresh claim to mines needed to fuel her rapidly growing fleet of flying warships. But as Grimmaea is building an air force of its own and the mines’ range is also home to a cluster of active volcanoes, widespread disaster looms…and, ultimately, strikes. Meanwhile Blue, caught between opposing armies and monarchs, weathers a rapid succession of dramatic encounters and narrow squeaks as she brings her quest to a successful conclusion at last. Exaggerated facial expressions occasionally give the figures in Xu’s bordered panels an artificially stylized, manga-esque look, but the action is easy to follow, and sharply rendered background details add depth and detail to the steampunk-ish setting. The author weaves a strong anti-war message through her tale, casting righteous shade on the evil, which both sides here practice, of recruiting children for military service and playing up the importance of an independent press. Though a bit unwieldy, her populous cast features several characters with mixed ancestry (including Blue), a trans character, and one that is constructed but human in all the ways that count.
An action-oriented closer, conventionally tidy at the end but distinctive for its richly imagined world. (Graphic science fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-80316-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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by Gordon Korman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2020
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace.
Two young people of different generations get profound lessons in the tragic, enduring legacy of war.
Raised on the thrilling yarns of his great-grandpa Jacob and obsessed with both World War II and first-person–shooter video games, Trevor is eager to join the 93-year-old vet when he is invited to revisit the French town his unit had helped to liberate. In alternating chapters, the overseas trip retraces the parallel journeys of two young people—Trevor, 12, and Jacob, in 1944, just five years older—with similarly idealized visions of what war is like as they travel both then and now from Fort Benning to Omaha Beach and then through Normandy. Jacob’s wartime experiences are an absorbing whirl of hard fighting, sudden death, and courageous acts spurred by necessity…but the modern trip turns suspenseful too, as mysterious stalkers leave unsettling tokens and a series of hostile online posts that hint that Jacob doesn’t have just German blood on his hands. Korman acknowledges the widely held view of World War II as a just war but makes his own sympathies plain by repeatedly pointing to the unavoidable price of conflict: “Wars may have winning sides, but everybody loses.” Readers anticipating a heavy-handed moral will appreciate that Trevor arrives at a refreshingly realistic appreciation of video games’ pleasures and limitations. As his dad puts it: “War makes a better video game….But if you’re looking for a way to live, I’ll take peace every time.”
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace. (Fiction/historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-29020-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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by Eoin Colfer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
Like its bestselling progenitors, a nonstop spinoff afroth with high tech, spectacular magic, and silly business.
With their big brother Artemis off to Mars, 11-year-old twins Myles and Beckett are swept up in a brangle with murderous humans and even more dangerous magical creatures.
Unsurprisingly, the fraternal Irish twins ultimately prove equal to the challenge—albeit with help from, Colfer as omniscient narrator admits early on, a “hugely improbable finale.” Following the coincidental arrival on their island estate of two denizens of the subterranean fairy realm in the persons of a tiny but fearsome troll and a “hybrid” pixie-elf, or “pixel,” police trainee, the youngest Fowls immediately find themselves in the sights of both Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye, a ruthless aristocrat out to bag said troll for its immorality-conferring venom, and Sister Jeronima Gonzalez-Ramos de Zárate, black-ops “nunterrogation” and knife specialist for ACRONYM, an intergovernmental fairy-monitoring organization. Amid the ensuing whirl of captures, escapes, trickery, treachery, and gunfire (none of which proves fatal…or at least not permanently), the twins leverage their complementary differences to foil and exasperate both foes: Myles being an Artemis mini-me who has dressed in black suits since infancy and loves coming up with and then “Fowlsplaining” his genius-level schemes; and Beckett, ever eager to plunge into reckless action and nearly nonverbal in English but with an extraordinary gift for nonhuman tongues. In the end they emerge triumphant, though threatened with mind wipe if they ever interfere in fairy affairs again. Yeah, right. Human characters seem to be default white; “hybrid” is used to describe nonhuman characters of mixed heritage.
Like its bestselling progenitors, a nonstop spinoff afroth with high tech, spectacular magic, and silly business. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-04375-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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by Eoin Colfer ; illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat
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by Eoin Colfer ; illustrated by P.J. Lynch
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by Eoin Colfer ; illustrated by Chris Judge
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