A fantastical, heart-filled adventure.
Mika and friends return for a journey to the underworld, facing more Filipino spirits and monsters in this duology closer.
Summer is over, and Mika is back at Ilustra, honing her magic as the Hirang with her guiding spirit, Hanan, the Goddess of Dawn. She’s finally gotten the hang of things when a wind deity summons a storm to block the light. During the storm, Mika’s guardian, Raha, is kidnapped and taken by a giant crocodile to Sulad, the Underworld. It turns out that Raha is the vessel for an evil spirit that has taken over the form of a dead goddess. As the Hirang, Mika is the only one who can rescue Raha and save the world from flooding and darkness. With the help of best friends Halle and Teo, new friend Danyal, and frenemy Amihan, Deity of the Northeast Wind, Mika must journey to Sulad, save Raha, and stop the evil spirit from being released. Along the way, they face challenges including sea monsters and difficult deities. Mika and her friends dive deeper into the exciting, magical world of Filipino lore and mythology. While they face external threats, they also confront issues within their group, including bickering and struggles with personal and familial expectations, identity, and self-doubt. Tadiar’s striking illustrations and Sousa’s bold coloring heighten the seriousness of the journey while also creating a beautiful underworld landscape based on the author’s experiences in the Philippines.
A fantastical, heart-filled adventure. (author’s note, behind the scenes) (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781368089715
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
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