Gabriel Sandro Fuentes, 11-year-old ambassador of Earth, fends off an alien invasion.
The superb conclusion to this two-part tale of space diplomacy restarts Gabriel's tale at the very moment Ambassador (2014) concluded: when he meets the shockingly human child ambassador of the nomadic, spacefaring Kaen. The Kaen are still out for Gabe's blood, Earth is threatened by the species-destroying Outlast, and (no less world-shaking) Gabriel's father's been deported from the United States to Mexico. Gabriel convinces the Kaen ambassador that he's her best ally against the Outlast, so he joins her on Kaen territory. The Kaen's jaguar-shaped shuttlecraft, Olmec-style spacesuits, and terrible tamales perturb Gabriel, though his fear that aliens may have been responsible for Mayan civilization prove unfounded. In the fascinatingly familiar craft, Gabriel and Kaen join with Ambassador Nadia, the previous child ambassador of Earth, who flew into a time dilation when she tried to fight the Outlast—in 1974. Soviet Nadia and modern American Gabe get on swimmingly, despite the culture clash; after all, they're both diplomats. Nadia has a vision disability, which Alexander handles with welcome nuance. Though Gabriel's not all that believable as an 11-year-old, he's thoroughly credible as an empathetic hero. With Nadia and Kaen, he relies on one hope to stop the Outlast: "Communication is possible. Communication is always possible." Maybe that's true on Earth, as well.
Alexander is clearly passionate about science, space exploration, and social justice, but he never allows that passion to shortchange the crackerjack adventure . (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9767-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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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. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle meets Left for Dead/The Walking Dead/Shaun of the Dead in a high-energy, high-humor look at the zombie apocalypse, complete with baseball (rather than cricket) bats.
The wholesome-seeming Iowa cornfields are a perfect setting for the emergence of ghastly anomalies: flesh-eating cows and baseball-coach zombies. The narrator hero, Rabi (for Rabindranath), and his youth baseball teammates and friends, Miguel and Joe, discover by chance that all is not well with their small town’s principal industry: the Milrow corporation’s giant feedlot and meat-production and -packing facility. The ponds of cow poo and crammed quarters for the animals are described in gaggingly smelly detail, and the bone-breaking, bloody, flesh-smashing encounters with the zombies have a high gross-out factor. The zombie cows and zombie humans who emerge from the muck are apparently a product of the food supply gone cuckoo in service of big-money profits with little concern for the end result. It’s up to Rabi and his pals to try to prove what’s going on—and to survive the corporation’s efforts to silence them. Much as Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (2010) was a clarion call to action against climate change, here’s a signal alert to young teens to think about what they eat, while the considerable appeal of the characters and plot defies any preachiness.
Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-22078-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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