The language will carry word-loving readers past the story’s rough spots.
Moments of real beauty and mystery vie for readers’ attention with an overstuffed plot glazed in magic.
The island of Murano was (and is) the home of Venice’s glassworks in 1497. There, Renzo tries to learn his late father’s craft, practicing at night. During the day, he serves the padrone who took him in and worries about how he might support his mother and sister. The glassmakers of Venice are fierce and protective of their skills, even to the point of violence. One night, a silent, green-eyed girl, Letta, and her kestrel creep into the glassworks, and Renzo discovers she leads a group of ragged children, each with a bird companion. Renzo is deeply conflicted as he tries to both teach himself and protect the children. An assassination, a lost relative, intimations of witchcraft, an eye-gouging and high tide seeping into the doge’s dungeons are only some of the plot lines in a story whose seams and rough cuts seem rather visible. But there are some lovely moments, too. “You can watch the glass swell, grow bubble-thin and gossamer, and know that fear is making it lovely, fear is giving it shape. With glass, joy is the preferable medium. But fear is powerful, and it will do, when joy cannot be found.”
The language will carry word-loving readers past the story’s rough spots. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2990-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.
Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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