Tan’s latest book is a portable gallery: each spread features an artfully illuminated sculptural scene facing a paragraph-length “explanation”—an excerpt from one of 75 Grimm fairy tales.
Tan created 50 sculptures for Philip Pullman’s Grimms Märchen (2013), a 512-page collection of familiar and lesser-known tales, available only in German. To present his menagerie to English speakers, Tan here adds more stories and art, eliciting text and an introduction from scholar Jack Zipes. Lean, powerful dialogue and descriptions accompany pieces with complex patinas, textured settings, and provocative subjects acting out their vengeance, charity, jealousy, and love. The objects, inspired by Inuit and pre-Columbian figurines, are sculpted from clay over papier-mâché and finished with acrylics, oxidized metal powder, and shoe polish. An evil queen is blood red, all sharp edges. Cinderella’s gilded face is framed claustrophobically by a rough, conical hearth. The titular story features an older brother about to kill his sibling to win their father’s favor. Readers must turn to the summaries at the back of the book to understand this entry (and others). While some will find this format useful, others will yearn for a complete narrative in context; Tan encourages readers to use this alongside Zipes’ The Complete Fairy Tales (1987).
These inscrutable, unsettling sculptures demand that viewers connect art and tale, examining their own reactions to the darkest impulses and glimpses of light within the book—and themselves. (foreword, introduction, bibliography, afterword, annotated index) (Fairy tales. 12 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-94612-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL
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A 12-year-old girl living in a kingdom ruled by a mysterious queen dreams of attaining her sport’s highest prize.
Legacy Petrin lives and works in the financially strapped orphanage in the provinces run by her father and rises early every day to practice tennis with her old racket. After her best friend, Van, excitedly tells her about a scholarship competition for a spot at an esteemed academy and the opportunity to try out for the national championships, Legacy runs away to the city to compete. After winning, she learns there is still much she doesn’t know: The players are not just proficient in tennis, but also have magical skills that they use to their advantage. Legacy befriends Pippa, a knowledgeable girl from an elite tennis family, and acquires a builder, or coach, Javi. With Pippa and Javi at her side, Legacy makes her way through the competition, despite sabotage attempts, learning secrets about her own family along the way. Legacy is a strong character, and the secondary characters also have interesting backstories. The storyline is reminiscent of other dystopian stories, but centering tennis—with lively descriptions of matches that give a strong sense of the sport—is an unusual touch. Most characters are white, although Javi is brown-skinned, and some other characters of color are mentioned.
Magic, tennis action, and family secrets are woven into an original coming-of-age tale. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949520-03-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
In this follow-up to Children of Blood and Bone (2018), Zélie and company are back, and the future of Orïsha hangs in the balance.
Zélie, now a maji Reaper, has achieved her goal and brought magic back to Orïsha, but at great cost. Grief and loss are strong themes throughout the book, compounded by guilt for Zélie, who feels responsible for her father’s death. Zélie and her older brother, Tzain, try to help Princess Amari ascend the throne, believing her family dead—but Queen Nehanda, Amari’s mother, is very much alive and more formidable than they could imagine. The trio join the Iyika, a band of rebel maji working to protect their persecuted people from threats new and old. Though the characters’ trauma reads as real and understandable, their decisions don’t always feel sensible or logical, often stemming from a lack of communication or forethought, which may leave readers frustrated. Though still commendable for its detailed worldbuilding, with an ending compelling enough to keep fans interested in the next installment, much of the book feels like navigating minefields of characters’ ill-advised decisions. All characters are black except for a secondary character with silky black hair, tan skin, and gray eyes “like teardrops.”
Second installments in trilogies sometimes slump—here’s hoping the third book is a return to the vibrancy of the first. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-17099-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN SOCIAL THEMES
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