A captivating, tender, and enjoyable genre winner for canine lovers.
A fictional autobiography focuses on a local Panacea, Florida, celebrity: a stray yellow dog who learns to depend on himself and the kindness of one special fan.
Surf Dude introduces himself in Andrews’ opening paragraph in lines that poignantly establish the emotional construct of the narrative’s protagonist: “I’m just your average yellow dog that once was loved, but became a drifter unexpectedly. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, perhaps a place where thunder, shotguns, fireworks, and mean people with cowboy boots don’t exist.” The canine was born in the woods of South Carolina. One fateful day, while his Mama was busy stalking prey, the pup was grabbed and tossed into a pickup truck by Leo, a large man wearing pointy boots. Leo drove home and threw the puppy into the lap of his girlfriend, Jorene. Despite his fear of humans, Leo in particular, the puppy became devoted to Jorene, who named him Honeybun and showered him with affection. Life changed the day Leo attacked Jorene. “I didn’t mean to do what I did,” Honeybun tells readers. “Jorene was my pack, and he was threatening her. I jumped up on the bed and sank my teeth into his forearm, right over his new tattoo.” It was time for Jorene and Honeybun to leave. They headed for the Florida Panhandle, where they spent several happy years in a campground trailer. Then tragedy struck, and Honeybun began his adventures as a loner wandering Surf Road. The articulate novel is based loosely on the real Surf Dude (thought to be a Carolina dog or a Carolina mix), who has inspired his own Facebook page and who still roams around Panacea and its environs, occasionally posing for photographs—if folks keep their distance. Andrews infuses her wily, resourceful pooch with a delightful, realistically canine interpretation of the world. She is a skillful storyteller, and her narrative engagingly mixes light humor, a bit of pathos, and assorted adventures with the compelling tale of Surf Dude’s cautiously evolving friendship with Russ, the older man who feeds him twice a day.
A captivating, tender, and enjoyable genre winner for canine lovers.Pub Date: July 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947536-09-8
Page Count: 117
Publisher: Turtle Cove Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
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