Can Oona meet the challenges of the Magician’s Tower?
Three months after 13-year-old Natural Magician Oona Crate’s last mysterious and magical adventure (The Wizard of Dark Street, 2011), the time has come for the Magician’s Tower Competition. Every five years, a new tower is built along Dark Street, the only conduit between Faerie and New York City, with new challenges, physical and mental, installed on each floor. Contestants compete through four days of elimination challenges in hopes of reaching the final challenge: a puzzle box no one has solved in the 500 years the contest has been running. Oona sets aside her Wizard’s apprentice duties to compete against her old acquaintances and rivals Adler and Isadora Iree and Roderick Rutherford, among others. Can she beat them and reach her goal or will she be distracted by the mystery of the missing punch bowl? Odyssey’s sequel suffers from many of the same problems as its predecessor. Though it is set in 1877, the historical setting is given nary a nod. The characters don't rise above clichés, and each has one characteristic trait that quickly grows old. The flabby prose teems with detail but pays little attention to it once it is introduced.
Oona’s back story has a mystery or two left; sequels will likely follow and hopefully improve. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60684-425-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A modern Sherlock Holmes retelling brings an 11-year-old black John Watson into the sphere of know-it-all 9-year-old white detective Shelby Holmes.
John's an Army brat who's lived in four states already. Now, with his parents' divorce still fresh, the boy who's lived only on military bases must explore the wilds of Harlem. His new life in 221A Baker St. begins inauspiciously, as before he's even finished moving in, his frizzy-haired neighbor blows something up: "BOOM!" But John's great at making friends, and Shelby certainly seems like an interesting kid to know. Oddly loquacious, brusque, and extremely observant, Shelby's locally famous for solving mysteries. John’s swept up in her detecting when a wealthy, brown-skinned classmate enlists their help in the mysterious disappearance of her beloved show dog, Daisy. Whatever could have happened to the prizewinning Cavalier King Charles spaniel? Has she been swiped by a jealous competitor? Has Daisy’s trainer—mysteriously come into enough money to take a secret weekend in Cozumel—been placing bets against his own dog? Brisk pacing, likable characters, a few silly Holmes jokes ("I'm Petunia Cumberbatch," says Shelby while undercover), and a diverse neighborhood, carefully and realistically described by John, are ingredients for success.
A smart, fresh take on an old favorite makes for a terrific series kickoff . (Mystery. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68119-051-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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