This rollicking serial adventure continues to please.
In their fifth outing, former circus acrobat Dessa and her nonhuman companions take ship for the “dark island” of Astaroth—first with a smuggler and then with a pirate king (who isn’t exactly a king).
Having holed up until Dessa’s broken leg heals, the trio continue their quest aboard the not-so-good ship Cutlass with proceeds from the sale of a horse stolen from their armored pursuer Capt. Drake in the previous episode (The King’s Dragon, 2014).That voyage quickly becomes a chase. After various misadventures, the Cutlass is overtaken by the fearsome and mysterious pirate king. He not only scoops up the fugitives and their prized map on the way to discovering just why the elusive island has always been so hard to find (hint: It’s not quite fixed in place), but turns out to have something in common with Dessa. Periodically the action cuts over to a city market where Capt. Drake buys a new horse, gets a tantalizing tarot forecast and learns something shocking about Dessa’s missing twin brother, Jared. Along with continuing to tell his adventuresome tale in clearly drawn, easy-to-follow panels, Chantler spices up the plot with banter and major twists aplenty.
This rollicking serial adventure continues to please. (Graphic fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-894786-53-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Unsurprisingly, Jinx displays hints of developing powers beyond the ordinary. Astonishingly, he and his world still seem...
Making unusually entertaining use of well-worn elements, this series opener plops a dense but promising young wizard-in-training between a pair of obnoxious rival mages.
Left by his stepparents to die in the dangerous Urwald, Jinx is rescued by Simon Magus, a “possibly evil” forest-dwelling wizard whose obsession with magical research is matched only by a truly profound lack of people skills. Several years later, having learned a little magic but also injured by one of Simon’s spells, Jinx stomps off in a rage to seek help. But hardly has he fallen in with a couple of ensorcelled fellow travelers, than all three fall into the clutches of the genial but rightly feared Bonemaster. Along with setting this adventuresome outing in a sentient forest populated by trolls, werewolves and giddy witches who bound about in butter churns, the pseudonymous Blackwood spins out lively dialogue threaded with comical rudeness and teasing. Trotting out a supporting cast whose inner characters are often at thought-provoking odds with their outer seeming, she also puts her central three through a string of suspenseful, scary situations before delivering a properly balanced closing set of resolutions, revelations and road signs to future episodes.
Unsurprisingly, Jinx displays hints of developing powers beyond the ordinary. Astonishingly, he and his world still seem fresh, for all that they echo familiar tropes. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-212990-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Middle-grade fans of L.L. Samson’s Enchanted Attic series will enjoy this, though it’s less clever in its twists and...
Two twins so nearly interchangeable that they even share each other’s thoughts nearly fall victim to a mad scientist in this mildly farcical series kickoff.
Despite genius-level intellects, the young Poes little suspect that their every move has been surreptitiously recorded since birth by crazed nuclear physicist S. Pangborn Perry. Convinced that they are living embodiments of quantum entanglement, he intends to kill one and enslave the other to open a channel of communication with the afterlife. McAlpine first establishes the twins’ bona fides as pranksters by having them turn their Baltimore basement into a chamber of horrors to cow a gang of bullies. He then sends them on a road trip to a supposed Oz-themed amusement park in Kansas, where Perry lurks with their kidnapped cat, Roderick Usher. Along the way, the lads cotton on to the fact that nefarious doings are afoot thanks to garbled warnings from their ancestral namesake, who watches over them from the not-quite-Heavenly office that generates fortune-cookie fortunes. In a climax filled with flying stage monkeys and falling counterweights, they scotch Perry’s plot—at least for this episode. Occasional letters, journal entries and text messages, as well as small, scribbly ink sketches fill out and add visual breaks to the narrative.
Middle-grade fans of L.L. Samson’s Enchanted Attic series will enjoy this, though it’s less clever in its twists and literary references. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-78491-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
