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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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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.