Oona’s back story has a mystery or two left; sequels will likely follow and hopefully improve.
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. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A kid adventurer with a disability makes this steampunk offering stand out.
Orphaned twins, an adventurer dad lost to an ice monster, and an airship race around the world.
In Lontown, 12-year-old twins Arthur and Maudie learn that their explorer father has gone missing on his quest to reach South Polaris, the crew of his sky-ship apparently eaten by monsters. As he’s accused of sabotage, their father’s property is forfeit. The disgraced twins are sent off to live in a garret in a scene straight out of an Edwardian novel à la A Little Princess. Maudie has the consolation of her engineering skills, but all Arthur wants is to be an adventurer like his father. A chance to join Harriet Culpepper’s journey to South Polaris might offer excitement and let him clear his father’s name—if only he can avoid getting eaten by intelligent ice monsters. Though some steampunk set dressing is appropriately over-the-top (such as a flying house, thinly depicted but charming), adaptive tools for Arthur’s disability are wonderfully realistic. His iron arm is a standard, sometimes painful passive prosthesis. The crew adapts the airship galley for Arthur’s needs, even creating a spiked chopping board. Off the ship, Arthur and Maudie meet people and animals in vignettes that are appealingly rendered but slight. Harriet teaches the white twins respect for the cultures they encounter on these travels, though they are never more than observers of non-Lontowners’ different ways.
A kid adventurer with a disability makes this steampunk offering stand out. (Steampunk. 9-11)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-324-00564-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A smart, fresh take on an old favorite makes for a terrific series kickoff
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 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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