A short children’s book with the feel of a modern fable, albeit one with an ambiguous moral.
A children’s chapter book about a little dog who goes on a big adventure.
Wise’s debut tells the story of Antoshka, a dachshund whom a woman named Mama adopts after finding him outside. She comes home from work one day to find her treasured crystal rose smashed on the ground, and so she sends the little dog to his room. After Antoshka’s dog toys come to life, they all go on a quest to ask the sun for help in replacing the shattered rose. Along the way, they battle lions, go on a sea voyage and visit a magical land where they make friends with a dragon. Although the grand adventures seem to last for many days, Antoshka eventually opens his eyes and finds himself at home in his dog bed, as if no time has passed—and magically, a new crystal rose for Mama has appeared. Many children will likely enjoy Antoshka and his friends’ adventures. However, the book’s intended audience is unclear: Although the chapters are short enough for younger readers, some long words and complex language (“Diligent bees were gathering nectar from flowers, and dragonflies were doing aerial aerobatics”) may present problems for beginners. Some story events are questionable in a book aimed at young children; for example, when Antoshka and his friends encounter some unfriendly lions, they solve the problem by throwing rocks, kicking, biting and clawing, and they receive no comeuppance for their violent attack. Also, when the group boards a boat, the captain assigns each of them a duty but tells the only female, “Well, you can be an onlooker, Miss.” Somewhat amateurish full-color illustrations accompany the text.
A short children’s book with the feel of a modern fable, albeit one with an ambiguous moral.Pub Date: May 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493638659
Page Count: 50
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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