Teen misfits accidentally discover a portal to a dangerous fantasy world in this immersive book/app combo.
Bullied nerd-type Marshall and proudly nonconformist new girl Mayberry (white, relatively blank-slate characters) decide to investigate a local legend about a grove in the middle of a forest and the magical Wishing Tree in its center. They jokingly wish for a magical adventure in a new world and then fall asleep at the foot of the tree. Initially, it’s great fun, but soon they encounter a chain of life-threatening dangers and vicious creatures, the final one a violent Troll-man with a white human slave (readers will quickly make a connection with the prologue, undermining the characters’ discovery later in the book). The villainous Troll-man teaches the teens magic in order to make them tools in his plan, the goal of which is murder and conquest. While the earlier parts of the adventure read like a walking tour and introduction to the land and its inhabitants, a later storyline—to save the other human—is where the story really picks up steam. The ending leaves plenty of wiggle room for other adventures in the magic world, Nith, as well as possible mishaps with powerful magical objects. The book will release alongside an app that uses a smartphone’s camera and the book’s illustrations to “create” 3-D animated models; it also gives bonus world information in the form of Mayberry’s diary, with planned additional interactive features. (The preview app consists of clean, high-quality sample character models and animation based on the full-color images; most full-color images not seen but likely will be the base of the full app’s materials.)
This fantasy relies on technology to stand out. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17689-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
In honor of its 25th anniversary, a Disney Halloween horror/comedy film gets a sequel to go with its original novelization.
Three Salem witches hanged in 1693 for stealing a child’s life force are revived in 1993 when 16-year-old new kid Max completes a spell by lighting a magical candle (which has to be kindled by a virgin to work). Max and dazzling, popular classmate Allison have to keep said witches at bay until dawn to save all of the local children from a similar fate. Fast-forward to 2018: Poppy, daughter of Max and Allison, inadvertently works a spell that sends her parents and an aunt to hell in exchange for the gleeful witches. With help from her best friend, Travis, and classmate Isabella, on whom she has a major crush, Poppy has only hours to keep the weird sisters from working more evil. The witches, each daffier than the last, supply most of the comedy as well as plenty of menace but end up back in the infernal regions. There’s also a talking cat, a talking dog, a gaggle of costumed heroines, and an oblique reference to a certain beloved Halloween movie. Traditional Disney wholesomeness is spiced, not soured, by occasional innuendo and a big twist in the sequel. Poppy and her family are white, while Travis and Isabella are both African-American.
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula. (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-02003-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Freeform/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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