A vividly novelized parable that explores all-too-timely social themes.
In a 21st century in which slavery was never abolished and the British Empire still rules the world, a London boy gets caught up in a fantastical fight for the survival of all living things.
Adam Alhambra is a courier. His Middle Eastern Muslim immigrant parents have a Soho alterations shop, and Adam makes deliveries to the white patrons who live on the other side of the checkpoints that separate the Ghetto from wealthier parts of the city. While fleeing from a robber, Adam escapes through a hidden doorway and meets the immortal Tyger, one of many creatures who are extinct in his world. Adam agrees to help Tyger by finding the Guardians who can reopen the gateways between worlds and stop the hatred and oppression stoked by a maleficent immortal named Urizen. He’s assisted by new friend Scheherazade “Zadie” True, a Black Muslim girl whose parents came from Timbuktu. The fast-paced story, populated by a diverse cast and underpinned by a creative premise, will sustain the interest of fans of plot-driven narratives even as it delves into moral and philosophical questions of belonging, inequality, and unity in the face of efforts at divisive manipulation. The alternate-history worldbuilding, featuring lore that’s indebted to William Blake, is dramatically evoked by McKean’s monochrome art. The strength of this novel, which garnered multiple honors in the U.K., lies in its demonstration of the power of art and language as tools of resistance.
A vividly novelized parable that explores all-too-timely social themes. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780593887240
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
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