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THE SPECIAL ONES

Name: THE SPECIAL ONES
Author: S.B. White
ISBN: 978-1-5246-1553-6

by S.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2016

Despite imperfect lives, these vivid characters remain role models of perseverance.

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A middle-grade adventure stars a group of children who can morph into animals.

On the bucolic planet Adoran, Grand Pierre and Aunt May run a farm. Under their guidance are children who can change into animals: Boxer, age 12, becomes a dog; Battle, 11, turns into an armored mastiff; Manx, 10, transforms into a cat; and Wren, 8, takes flight like her namesake. Originally hailing from the planet Ulterion, the kindly couple are also part of a resistance movement working against robots programmed to destroy them. The children, likewise from Ulterion, are clones “developed...with specific animal traits” from Adoran. Once the children’s training in combat and subterfuge is complete, Pierre takes them to an orphanage on the outskirts of a settlement run cruelly by the robots. There they covertly team up with Father Brion to run sabotage missions against enemy buildings, hoping to disable the androids’ communication systems. The Special Ones must also contend with bullies and whether or not to trust strange children they encounter in their cloak-and-dagger world. Speed is essential, because with the robots preventing people from hunting or growing crops, nobody can afford donations to the orphanage—and Father Brion may have to shutter it. In this optimistic novel, White (The Twins of Fairland, 2014, etc.) writes for his young audience with instruction foremost in mind. Pierre tells the kids, “Always control your powers, work as a team through cooperation, be cautious before you act, and be curious if...something needs explaining.” This is ideal advice for real-world behavior, and the author illustrates his Cs through detailed—though sometimes repetitive—missions that also require animal prowess. He anticipates one of the audience’s biggest questions when he explains: “Plain clothes merged into their animal forms, but they could not be holding other items when they changed.” After the Special Ones befriend the characters Bear, Dent, and Bunny, readers will see that kindness and inclusion are the way forward.

Despite imperfect lives, these vivid characters remain role models of perseverance.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1553-6

Page Count: 396

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.