A deft twist on familiar source material and a tween hero’s relatable struggle with destiny.
A young mage sees his family enslaved and joins King Arthur’s fight against evil.
In this dynamic fantasy series opener for middle-grade readers, Mordred of Arthurian legend is recast as the sinister king of northern Britain. He decrees that all “ordinarius,” or nonmagical, families will be sold into slavery and their goods and property forfeited. Those with magic will be forced to join Mordred’s mages in his upcoming war against King Arthur in the south. Villager Pip Gwynhoed, 12, is the only one in his family with magical abilities. He wants to stay with his relatives, but when they are separated on the auction block—realistically depicted—Pip loses control of his untrained gift. Drawn to Pip’s raw power, Merlin appears, takes him as his apprentice, and buys the boy’s mother and sister, freeing them all for a perilous journey to join Arthur in advance of Mordred’s forces. When Pip’s mother and sister are brutally taken by bandits along the way, the tween’s desperate attempt to find them threatens his own life. With vivid scene-setting, McCauley expertly draws readers into a perilous, sometimes ruthless world as experienced through the eyes of a boy consumed by guilt and grief over his family’s plight and the uncertainty about who he is becoming. Pip is haunted by ravens that twist “in the sky, their wings nearly blacking out the pale winter sun.” He sees Arthur’s “massive hill fortress” with wooden battlements reaching “like fingers into the sky.” It may be a predictable trope that Pip is seemingly central to a prophecy—he does, after all, carry a powerful runestone passed down from his magus grandfather—but there is no loss of authenticity in the protagonist’s character development. Pip’s struggle to rise above his personal anguish to fight for all who suffer under wicked Mordred’s cruelty rings true. But the author ups the stakes and sets the stage for the sequel when it appears that Pip may pay a high price for Arthur’s solution to preventing others from seizing magical power.
A deft twist on familiar source material and a tween hero’s relatable struggle with destiny.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-951069-16-2
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Celtic Sea, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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