A charming adventure marred by its overwhelmingly paternalistic attitude to a disabled character
A nervous, routine-loving middle schooler finds a hotel that’s magically connected to doors all over the world.
Cam and Cass Kuhn live with Oma, their grandmother. Twelve years ago, when they were babies, their mother died and their father vanished. Cam broods over his “Worst Ways to Die” list (No. 52: a murder of grackles; No 340: flesh rot) and worries endlessly about his sister’s health. Cass has spina bifida, and Cameron is petrified that she’ll die at any moment. A chance magical encounter brings him to The Hotel Between, a hotel whose magical doors appear all over the world: in Cam’s own Dallas, in Budapest, in Dubai. Though Cam now has new, magical Worst Ways to Die on his list, he can’t ignore the strange connection between the Hotel and his long-lost father. Under the tutelage of Nico, a boy who works at the Hotel, Cam gets a probationary job at the Hotel himself. What’s the Hotel’s mysterious mission? Some notable funny touches help build a charming magical world, though the global travel tends toward the shallow and exotic. Worse, Cam’s focused on finding a magical cure for Cass even though Cass (who needs repeated rescue) doesn’t want one. Denotation of nonnormative characters—Nico has “bronze” skin, among other kids of color on staff—plus the twins’ Germanic heritage will likely lead readers to infer that Cam and Cass are likely white.
A charming adventure marred by its overwhelmingly paternalistic attitude to a disabled character . (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1697-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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