This first novel feels like one. Eleven-year-old Darren has always felt like an oddball, which is why he enjoys the annual visit to his oddball uncle’s cabin. Each year, a treasure hunt awaits, with obscure clues tucked away throughout the house and nearby town. This year’s hunt proves the most elusive ever, as Uncle Will has disappeared, leaving only a note about watering his plants and returning his library book. Darren eventually puzzles out a startling realization about his family’s origins and powers, but through a secret passage and into Tir na N’Og, the story sadly starts to lose its edge, becoming more predictable and less convincing as Darren has responsibilities thrust upon him. The cleverness and pre-adolescent questioning of adults that make him such an appealing and self-empowering character seem to fade away in the other world, where he just acts as all fantasy novels direct. Thankfully, a brisk pace carries readers to a satisfying enough ending. Though Mitchell’s complex and gripping set-up slumps through its lackluster resolution, it promises more polished progeny. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-439-82788-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
In a rousing first novel, already an award-winner in England, Harry is just a baby when his magical parents are done in by Voldemort, a wizard so dastardly other wizards are scared to mention his name.
So Harry is brought up by his mean Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley, and picked on by his horrid cousin Dudley. He knows nothing about his magical birthright until ten years later, when he learns he’s to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts is a lot like English boarding school, except that instead of classes in math and grammar, the curriculum features courses in Transfiguration, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry becomes the star player of Quidditch, a sort of mid-air ball game. With the help of his new friends Ron and Hermione, Harry solves a mystery involving a sorcerer’s stone that ultimately takes him to the evil Voldemort. This hugely enjoyable fantasy is filled with imaginative details, from oddly flavored jelly beans to dragons’ eggs hatched on the hearth.
It’s slanted toward action-oriented readers, who will find that Briticisms meld with all the other wonders of magic school. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-590-35340-3
Page Count: 309
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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