This inventive, modern fairy-tale adventure is sprinkled with wry humor.
Wanda’s 11th birthday begins with a bluebird flying smack into her bedroom window, and then it gets worse.
Wanda always tries to be kind and helpful. Still, her parents chastise her and praise Zane, her horrible beast of a younger brother, no matter what happens, even when he spits peas at her across the dinner table. Every birthday she wishes to suddenly become an orphan. It turns out that the bluebird, named Voltaire, has a secret message to deliver, but he cannot remember it. On a journey to learn what it is, the two go into the Scary Wood among all sorts of creatures who wish her ill (and frequently almost succeed in doing it). Amid many magical mishaps, transfigurative perils, and a smooch-obsessed frog, Wanda hopes to discover her “true” family. The text is well constructed, containing odd scraps sewn together into an imaginative story quilt. There’s a supernatural cast chock-full of familiar types in fiendishly new forms, such as the Groods, chimerically composed of various flora and fauna. Wanda is by turns charmingly flabbergasted and persistently practical but ever well meaning; readers are sure to root for her along the journey. Textual descriptions combine with Harney’s cartoon illustrations to establish a largely white cast; in a welcome twist for a genre that too often racializes evil, the dreadful witch has “creamy” skin.
This inventive, modern fairy-tale adventure is sprinkled with wry humor. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-04315-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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