A captivating exploration of found family and healing through Greek mythology.
After using an ancient Greek relic without permission, a Living girl finds herself stuck in the realm of the Dead trying to save her best friend, in this second book in the Underwild series.
Anya didn’t mean to land both herself and bestie Lizzie inside a Greek myth. After eavesdropping on a conversation between Hecate, the goddess of ghosts, and Senka, a girl from school who’s Charon’s ward (and the protagonist of 2025’s River of Spirits), Anya learns that the Keys to the Realm can open doors everywhere. Desperate to see her dearest friend, Korean American Lizzie, who recently moved to a different state, Anya steals the keys, not realizing she’s breaking a Law of the gods, putting both her life and Lizzie’s in jeopardy. When the Furies take Lizzie, Anya teams up with Senka for a rescue mission. They must accomplish their goal before Lizzie and Anya lose their memories, which is a side effect for Living mortals of being in the realm of the Dead. Along the way, Anya and Senka, who present white, meet a cast of famous and obscure Greek gods, goddesses, and creatures as they brave the perils of the Underworld to save Lizzie. Brilliantly flipping the narrative of the myth of Hades and Persephone, Targosz’s narrative masterfully weaves Anya’s pain and healing from familial wounds into the story. The book gracefully and age-appropriately handles challenging topics.
A captivating exploration of found family and healing through Greek mythology. (The Laws of the Relics) (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781665957663
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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