An overlarge recipe, tasty but flawed.
The winners of a candy-making contest track a mysterious but crucial ingredient.
Although it was Philip who officially won the contest (The Candymakers, 2010) with his combination instrument/chocolate bar, Logan, Miles, Daisy, and Philip are secretly a team. But when the Harmonicandy comes off the line, something’s terribly wrong: it’s delicious, but Logan—who has acute senses—knows it tastes different from how it tasted during the contest. Discovering that they’d inadvertently used an unsourceable and barely definable type of chocolate, the kids embark on a road trip, hoping to comprehend and locate that unique cocoa bean. Mass packs in so many cool details and discoveries—a fancy RV, maps, candy, spy work, geocaching, long-lost relatives, cameos from Every Soul a Star (2008), startling microclimates, bioluminescent water, and more—that they sometimes overflow their wrapping. When each protagonist narrates in turn, keeping secrets from the others, it’s scrumptiously tantalizing; later, when the narrative viewpoint includes everyone, it’s blander. There’s an enjoyable, quaint friendliness overall. The world of the book is a largely white one, aside from Miles and his family, who are Chinese-American. The genre dips a bit into hand-waving fantasy explanations (including some magical healing of disability), which, ironically, somewhat lessens the magical feeling that The Candymakers wove from puzzle pieces, perspectives, and coincidence.
An overlarge recipe, tasty but flawed. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-08919-7
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
An adventurous, otherworldly story that explores emotional themes.
A 12-year-old witch is responsible for saving her family and town from evil.
Esmerelda Santos is a bruja—a descendant of one of the four original witches, who vanished along with their special daggers. Usually, brujxes can command one element. Esme’s sister, Lenny, is of Water, and her best friend, Tiago, is of Air, but Esme is a Chaos witch. All she wants to do with her power is ease her father’s grief over her mother’s death. When she finds a heart spell, Esme believes she can use it to heal him. While she and Tiago are off gathering the ingredients, however, a storm hits, and all the witches vanish, along with the town’s magic. Esme returns to find Lenny, who’s been stabbed with a dagger. Lenny delivers a cryptic message before going up in smoke: They must find an original witch from the Legend of Ire. Esme and Tiago travel to a “banished realm where forbidden magic runs wild,” befriend a cursed fox, and find their way through portals to confront an unknown evil. If they fail, their families will be lost to Oblivion and their town of San Bosco will cease to exist. While readers must initially follow many different threads, the storyline smooths out as it develops. Once the worldbuilding is established, readers will be rewarded by being transported into the magical, mysterious world Esme inhabits as they follow her journey of self-discovery through grief and love. Final art not seen.
An adventurous, otherworldly story that explores emotional themes. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780063312074
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
A delightful read.
In this fast-paced sequel to Saving Fable (2019), protagonist Indira Story and her friends must save their world from a powerful force before it destroys them.
Following the completion of her first story, Indira is looking forward to a vacation. At Protagonist Prep, however, Brainstorm Underglass has other plans: She sends Indira on a quest tutorial titled “Hero’s Journey” to teach her the art of complementary teamwork. Her assigned teammates include: Allen Squalls, a boy who was so traumatized by the ousted Brainstorm Ketty that he needs to recover his confidence; Indira’s best friend, Phoenix, who might be a potential romantic interest in her next story; and Gadget, a talented girl who needs to learn to focus on the story rather than on the technology in front of her. Although Indira and her companions begin their quest in the town of Ordinary, they are interrupted by an unexpected, all-powerful entity who threatens to destroy their world, and it is up to the team to save their world…again. In many ways, this outing is far more compelling than its predecessor: While both novels revel in witty literary humor, Indira’s second adventure has an evenly paced plot and characters that are better developed and more accessible. Brown-skinned Indira’s name suggests that she is Indian, but her cultural identity is not plumbed; her teammates seem to default to White.
A delightful read. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-64672-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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