Original but too sloppily executed for success.
Village girl encounters magic, heads to the big city, and meets a handsome knight and steam-carriages.
Sixteen-year-old Emeline lives in a village so small and remote that they don’t even use money, but when she and her brother spot an Ithin, a legendary Dark Creature, they, along with their widowed father, a neighbor, and a stowaway, head to the capital: The law requires they report the sighting to the king in person. Along the way they meet a Lash Knight and become embroiled in the philosophical and political feud between Sapients and Theurgists. Lovely illustrations from Kipin (The Language of Thorns, 2017) elevate this debut but don’t make up for the nonexistent plot (mostly conversation and sightseeing) or the haphazard worldbuilding. Technology ranges from nonexistent to programmable automata; silver is used for bullets and any number of other uses for which it’s likely too soft; magic runs in the Keldare people, but at the same time anyone can join the Keldare. Imagination is on full display, but multiple threads compete to be the central seam, to the detriment of narrative flow. Note that the art depicts Emeline as darker-skinned and love interest Reese lighter; the text focuses mostly on fashion and finance, not skin tone, although some variation is implied.
Original but too sloppily executed for success. (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4020-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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