Hamilton's clean, spare style delights and surprises with its unexpected melodies and insights.
Winner of an impressive number of prizes, including a Newbery and two Coretta Scott King awards, Hamilton is at home in biography, folklore, and fantasy; here, in a sequel to The House of Dies Drear (1968), she returns to realistic fiction with roots in the past of both family and place.
Thomas Small and his family inhabit the old Drear house, keeping secret the tunnel, fabulous treasure, and Underground Railway hideaway discovered in the earlier book. Old Plato still lives nearby in a cave that conceals an entrance to the tunnel; and Thomas still thinks of the neighboring Darrow men as enemies, though Pesty Darrow is a friend and Macky might become one. The Darrows have been seeking the rumored treasure for generations. Unexpectedly, Mrs. Darrow, an awe-inspiring recluse whose mind is trapped burrowing in the past as others might be caught burrowing in Drear's perilous historic tunnels, makes her way through a tunnel that the Smalls were unaware of, into their dwelling. Now everyone has secrets to defend; and in order to save the historic treasure from looting and its searchers and defenders from the tunnels' dangers, Mr. Small (a history professor) goes public with the find, effectively both preserving it and realigning his family and the Darrows in a tentative friendship. On one level, this is an accessible tale of an exciting discovery, lively with conversation and action. But Hamilton's stories are always complex, multileveled. The muted contrast among three families of diverse ages, education and status, while emphasizing their common humanity; the historical undercurrent surfacing in Mrs. Darrow's tragic story of an Indian girl who lost her life while failing to save a group of orphans from slavers; and the intricacies of ownership and use of whatever treasures there may be, and their effect on owners or users, are among the themes to ponder here.
Hamilton's clean, spare style delights and surprises with its unexpected melodies and insights. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: March 16, 1987
ISBN: 0590956272
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid.
Black sixth-grader Jake Liston can only play one song on the piano. He can’t read music very well, and he can’t improvise. So how did Jake get accepted to the Music and Art Academy? He faked it.
Alongside an eclectic group of academy classmates, and with advice from his best friend, Jake tries to fit in at a school where things like garbage sculpting and writing art reviews of bird poop splatter are the norm. All is well until Jake discovers that the end-of-the-semester talent show is only two weeks away, and Jake is short one very important thing…talent. Or is he? It’s up to Jake to either find the talent that lies within or embarrass himself in front of the entire school. Light and humorous, with Knight’s illustrations adding to the fun, Jake’s story will likely appeal to many middle-grade readers, especially those who might otherwise be reluctant to pick up a book. While the artsy antics may be over-the-top at times, this is a story about something that most preteens can relate to: the struggle to find your authentic self. And in a world filled with books about wanting to fit in with the athletically gifted supercliques, this novel unabashedly celebrates the artsy crowd in all of its quirky, creative glory.
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-52351-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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