Complex and convoluted, this tale will repay close attention from fans of offbeat fantasy.
Love conquers all, sort of, eventually, maybe, in this quirky fantasy that incorporates alchemical transformations, hidden identities, inventive wordplay, and terrible (mostly off-stage) violence and destruction.
The multilayered story, which takes place in Petrossia, a vaguely medieval country with Russian overtones, follows a feisty girl named Teresa, a serf who works in the czar’s kitchen, and Pieter, a young “mathemagician.” Teresa is intrigued by alchemy and motivated by revenge. She believes that Pieter can help her learn—so she kidnaps him. Against all odds, this rash act is the unlikely start to a friendship that leads them through a multitude of dangers up to and including a quest to the land of the dead. Along the way British author Gayton sprinkles references to amusingly skewed traditional tales and to his own earlier work, The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn (2016). Arch authorial asides explain the calendar of Petrossia, the makeup of the czar’s war council, death, and other relevant topics. Readers with a taste for sly humor, grim events, and (literally) undying loyalty will gobble this up. Those who are attracted by the charming cover illustration of a cartoonish cat wearing a tiny crown, however, may be dismayed by the distinctly different direction taken by the narrative within.
Complex and convoluted, this tale will repay close attention from fans of offbeat fantasy. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9090-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists.
Princess Grace of Merryland needs rescuing again, forcing two young knights-in-training to face a series of challenges, from hungry cave sharks to a minotaur named Chad.
Actually, Princess Grace is perfectly capable of rescuing herself—again: see Once Upon a Tim (2022)—except that this time, kidnappers have stashed her in a room that’s locked and bolted on the outside…and in the middle of a maze billed, supposedly, as “the most complex and dastardly labyrinth in the world.” So it is that former peasants Tim and his more capable friend Bull—otherwise known as Belinda when she’s not disguised as a boy—plunge into a mess of dark and bewildering tunnels, armed with a ball of twine provided by the surprisingly sapient village idiot Ferkle, to face a series of deadly threats…though the most legendary of all turns out to be an amiable monster with the body of a bull and the head of, well, a dude. Throughout Gibbs’ lighthearted, laugh-out-loud tale, Curtis supplies proper notes of farce or stark terror as appropriate in flurries of line drawings that present most of the humans and the monsters with human features as White, though Belinda appears to present as Black. Along the way, Tim adds educational value to his narrative by flagging and then pausing to define vocabulary-building words like laborious and vexing.
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9928-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thought-provoking and full of heart; a genuinely pleasurable read.
Before he ages out of seeing Holy Beings, Nathan must find water monster Dew a mentor.
A couple of years after the events of Healer of the Water Monster (2021), Nathan’s life in Phoenix, Arizona, is changing—he and his mother, Janet, are moving in with Janet’s boyfriend and his son, the book’s co-protagonist, Edward. More than that, Nathan’s going through puberty and knows his time with Dew is limited—her new guardian will be Edward. But to ensure that Dew learns the water monster songs, she needs a mentor. Nathan wants it to be powerful water monster Yitoo Bi’aanii, who eagerly returns to the Fourth World. Upon seeing how her river has dwindled, Yitoo declares that an Enemy is stealing the water. The quest to thwart the Enemy is quickly complicated as the stakes rise and the heroes face conflicting loyalties. The environmentalist narrative embraces nuance and complications, avoiding easy answers without undermining the possibility of a hopeful future. Edward, newly informed of his Diné family’s brutal relocation era story, also struggles with inherited trauma, while Yitoo, who was witness to the violence, carries the atrocities with her. Additionally, Edward grapples with the fact that his late mother was White and with being the only household member who is not fully Diné. The bittersweet ending is as beautiful as the prose describing the fantastical journey to get there.
Thought-provoking and full of heart; a genuinely pleasurable read. (author’s note, glossary, note from Cynthia Leitich Smith) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780062990433
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Heartdrum
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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