Despite its conventionality, young fantasy fans will likely enjoy this novel and take away lessons about different cultures.
A 10-year-old boy from another planet time-travels around Earth as he tries to track down his missing parents.
The novel opens with Orion Spence awakening after his airship crashes in Antarctica and he can’t find his parents. It’s an enticing beginning that slowly unveils the true circumstances of Orion’s situation. He and his parents come from the island of Patalosh on the planet Lumina. They learned to journey through time and have settled on Earth, allowing Orion to make friends across countries and centuries as they navigate the globe on the HMS Exploricus airship. What sounds like an adventurous life comes with a few problems: First, Orion is a “Non,” which means he doesn’t have any magic powers, unlike most of his fellow Taloshians. Second, the evil Emperor Daaggerd is holding Orion’s parents hostage, since they are the keepers of a book that contains all the good and evil spells in existence. It’s up to Orion, a Taloshian named Sir Karotene, a penguin and other friends they pick up along the way to trek to each of the seven continents and solve puzzles so they can retrieve keys to unlock the book before the Emperor can find them. Then he must locate and rescue his parents. It’s a well-trod good-vs.-evil plot, with numerous conventions from series like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, so readers can sense what’s coming. The writing is a little flat but easy for young readers to follow. It’s a quick read for fans of adventure—the time- and world-traveling components add a fun touch. The authors are also concerned with exercise and nutrition, which adds another educational aspect to the text.
Despite its conventionality, young fantasy fans will likely enjoy this novel and take away lessons about different cultures.Pub Date: Feb. 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1463521332
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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