Lively and sometimes-surly preteen characters helm this fresh, well-crafted supernatural fantasy.
A girl and her friends experience otherworldly dangers and fantastical discoveries at summer camp.
Twelve-year-old Harmony, who lives with her divorced mom, is grumpy that they had to suddenly move from Los Angeles to a small Northern California town simply because some weird little man had followed her around the mall. Even worse, Mom enrolled her in summer camp, where Harmony is sure misery awaits her. Camp Coho, in the redwood forest near Mendocino, is no ordinary camp. Readers learn this when the camp dog, Guardian Hound MacUmba, silently assesses the campers as they arrive. Observing “tiny threads of rage” floating around Harmony, he silently tells the camp director, Mr. Magnussen, “This one could prove to be difficult.” Rude and sarcastic, angry at her absentee mother, Harmony nonetheless befriends cabin mate Olivia, and gradually, the pair teams up with three boys their age. They discover that they have more in common than camp after Harmony responds to a dare with a forbidden, late-night trek into the forest, followed by her worried friends. Here, this imaginative fantasy by debut author Hendrix becomes a roller-coaster ride into the supernatural. A fierce, massively transformed MacUmba saves the young people from a “draugar” (war dog zombie), and they are transported back and forth in time via ancient “Sentinel Trees.” The quintet subsequently learns that ghosts, goblins, the fae, and the undead are real, and they have magical potential of their own. Throughout, Hendrix adds real-world substance to the plot with a framework of the area’s folklore, history, geography, and ecology. Readers will find hints of what to expect in the upcoming sequel as still prickly Harmony and her friends enter seventh grade while honing the magical skills that will undoubtedly be needed. A brief excerpt from the second installment, introducing a new character, provides an additional teaser.
Lively and sometimes-surly preteen characters helm this fresh, well-crafted supernatural fantasy.Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-89147-7
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
SEEN & HEARD
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