An amiable fantasy for children that needed stronger editing.
A girl embarks on a journey through a magical maze in Butler’s children’s fantasy debut.
Eight-year-old Chloe Rose lives in Wilmoton with her mother, Catherine, and father, Michael, an army captain who frequently leaves home due to the town’s conflict with the neighboring village of Cottondale. Chloe’s best friend is Thyra Andrews, whose father, Albert, serves in the army with Michael, and tragedy strikes when both men die in battle. Nearly a year later, Chloe’s mother marries King Francis II, and Chloe becomes the stepsister to the king’s daughter, Matilda. The girls don’t get along, and Chloe goes to stay with her grandmother Ethel, who tells her about Ellotosa’s Maze, a “connection to another world” that grants children who complete the maze their deepest wish. Intrigued, Chloe decides to visit the Ellotosa’s Maze and asks Thyra to join her. Along the way, they meet Edith Caswell, who believes she lost her parents and brother in a storm, and with her companions, Chloe Rose completes the challenges that are supposed to allow her to achieve her wish: to spend “one last day” with her father. However, danger lurks in the maze, and the girls discover that the fairy Asotolle has her own plans for them. Chloe Rose is a winsome heroine, and her adventures in the maze are well done: They introduce fantastic characters, including the Librarian, a specter composed of all the letters in every known human language. The novel also brims with ideas, though editing missteps make some of the text confusing. For example, when discussing the characters Ms. Makkine and Ms. Lupton, Butler writes, “the children fell under their responsibility when all the house heads had caste lots.” Such lapses aside, this is an appealing story that takes the characters on a quest that reveals the power of friendship.
An amiable fantasy for children that needed stronger editing.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73394-206-5
Page Count: 396
Publisher: GenZ Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This suspenseful, undersea dystopia should keep middle schoolers hooked.
Several centuries after global warming has devastated the planet, a tyrannical government has taken control of the West Coast of America.
In a small seaside community in what was Southern California, Nere lives with her scientist mother and a pod of trained dolphins. Unbeknownst to Nere, her parents have genetically engineered her and several other children to breathe under water so they can live free there someday. When the government announces its intention to move the entire community inland, Nere’s mother finishes the alterations on the children and sends them away into the sea, where they will try to join Nere’s father’s colony for these new “Neptune children.” Nere and her friends, along with their friendly dolphins, must make their way there under the sea while fighting sharks and avoiding capture by government forces. They communicate telepathically, and Nere is even able to talk with the dolphins. Together with other Neptune children from Southern California, they head north, hiding and fighting all the way. Holyoke keeps her prose well-pitched to her audience, providing enough violence and even death to create suspense but muting it appropriately. She creates an interesting and diverse set of characters, including the dolphins. The science-fiction elements are nothing new, but they are built on good information about oceanography.
This suspenseful, undersea dystopia should keep middle schoolers hooked. (Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-5756-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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