Indelible animal characters headline this winsome tale of fellowship and magic.
A barn cat’s new city life comes with a slew of new friends and a petnapping case to solve in this fantasy sequel.
Grey the Kitten runs away from the farm where she was born and grew up. Her recently discovered magical voice—her words literally build or break things—allows her to navigate a wooden fence with ease (“Grey saw the circle of words cut through the center of the fence before disappearing into a cloud of wooden dust”). The farm owner’s niece finds and adopts Grey, whose new home is in a pet-friendly apartment building in a busy city. The feline sniffs out affable animals, including one of her roommates, Lane the Labrador. The chocolate Lab has magical ears; he can hear others’ thoughts when they need help. The talented pair’s abilities may prove necessary when pets disappear during an animal party, including the host. It’s likely an abduction, and many of the attendees quickly point their paws at the strays who hang out in the weeds near the city’s popular park. Grey is torn; as she comes from a family of feral cats, she relates to and sympathizes with the homeless animals. She joins the rescue mission but may have to decide if she’s a stray or a pet. Fantasy elements in Nilsson’s second installment are sublimely understated. Grey and Lane rarely use their magical powers, while bright stars, like Polly the North Star, intermittently appear and subtly guide the animals. The author tells this good-natured story entirely from the animals’ perspectives even when humans occasionally show up. She lovingly describes four-legged characters—a colorful variety of dog and cat breeds and even a lizard. They pop up in entertaining situations, such as domesticated pets holding a board meeting in a 21st-floor maintenance closet. The simple but concise prose, coupled with Harrison’s sharply detailed black-and-white artwork, will appeal to readers of all ages—as will the uplifting message of acceptance.
Indelible animal characters headline this winsome tale of fellowship and magic.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-954401-02-0
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Loodor Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
After some autobiographical excursions, Dahl here returns to the sort of whimsically grotesque fantasy that makes grown-ups wince and children beg for more. His heroine is five-year-old Matilda, a genius whose mathematical abilities, as well as her impressive reading list (Hemingway, Steinbeck, etc.), are totally unappreciated by her father—a dishonest used-car salesman—and her mother, a devotee of bingo and TV soaps. Only when the girl enters school does she find an understanding ally, Miss Honey, a paragon of virtue who attempts to defend her pupils against unbelievably cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull, who hates children in direct proportion to their youth and tortures them accordingly. Just when things seem to be at their worst, Matilda discovers still another gift, telekinesis, enabling her to defeat the horrible Trunchbull and give Miss Honey, and herself, a new start. Dahl's tightly woven plots, his strict sense of absolute justice, and his raunchy "funny bits" make him popular with children who also appreciate the empowerment he grants to his smaller, weaker protagonists. Matilda is the most simplistic of his efforts in this direction, but it does retain the time-honored appeal, abetted by Blake's apt illustrations. It probably should be marked "For Children Only," though. And Dahl slips badly when he says that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien have no "funny bits" in their books.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1988
ISBN: 0142410373
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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