An adventurous tale with a heartwarming message of acceptance.
A Viking Age teen surmounts daunting odds to redefine family and find belonging in this adventure.
Orphaned Helga has felt the valley dwellers’ coldness for most of her 13 years. She’s tried to change the villagers’ perceptions of Goat-Thigh, who took her in and is the only father she’s ever known. But people say he’s a “bear-man,” subject to the violent inherited tempers of a berserker. Helga has never seen this side of him, and for her latest effort to earn acceptance and protection, she convinces Goat-Thigh to transport a beautiful tapestry she wove to honor the chieftain at his cousin Fox-Brow’s funeral. But when they arrive, her tapestry reveals unexpected magic, and Goat-Thigh’s bear-fury overcomes him. Helga, accompanied by best friend Scratcher, attempts to make a calming offering at the mountain known as Troll Teeth but instead releases a host of violent draugar, or undead spirits, who lurch off toward the chieftain’s longhouse. Helga, Scratcher, and the chieftain’s daughter, Margrét Thistle-Heart, become uneasy allies as they vanquish the draugar, unravel family secrets, and find their places within their community. Helga’s first-person narration effectively captures a universal longing for acceptance, combining elements from Icelandic sagas and Norse mythology with themes of difference and acceptance. Khatkevich’s illustrations give shape to the draugar’s tortured expressions and depict aspects of the clothing, hairstyles, and homes of the primarily light-skinned characters.
An adventurous tale with a heartwarming message of acceptance. (author’s note) (Historical fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9781665974493
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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