A charming story of relationships and fantastical discoveries.
Two friends follow an old journal to find one girl’s missing grandmother.
Lu loves hearing her geozoologist grandmother Ah-ma’s stories about her adventures and work with creatures like the mossbear and stonefowl. Lu wants to accompany her on her next expedition, but Ah-ma says she’s too young. As time passes and Ah-ma’s letters stop coming, Lu becomes determined to find her. She’s sure she can discover clues to Ah-ma’s whereabouts in her old travel journal. But the journal is written in Cylian, and Lu can’t read the characters fluently. One day, her childhood friend Ren appears in the neighborhood, and the two decide to travel together to find Ah-ma. Along the way, they meet some of Ah-ma’s friends and encounter the wonders Ah-ma taught Lu about. But trouble looms as Ren keeps big secrets, and Lu struggles with revelations about her grandmother’s past. This full-color graphic novel is a beautiful story of family and friendship set in a fantasy world that cleverly combines geology and zoology. The two girls grapple with familial issues connected to expectations, language barriers, and loss. Lu, Ren, and their families speak Lirrish and Cylian, corollaries of English and Mandarin Chinese, respectively; differently colored fonts indicate which language they’re using. Lu has dark brown skin and black hair, and Ren has lighter brown skin and black hair.
A charming story of relationships and fantastical discoveries. (map, language note, The Traveler’s Guide to Geozoology, making of the graphic novel) (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9780063207905
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasing premise for book lovers.
A fantasy-loving bookworm makes a wonderful, terrible bargain.
When sixth grader Poppy Woodlock’s historic preservationist parents move the family to the Oregon coast to work on the titular stately home, Poppy’s sure she’ll find magic. Indeed, the exiled water nymph in the manor’s ruined swimming pool grants a wish, but: “Magic isn’t free. It cosssts.” The price? Poppy’s favorite book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In return she receives Sampson, a winged lion cub who is everything Poppy could have hoped for. But she soon learns that the nymph didn’t take just her own physical book—she erased Narnia from Poppy’s world. And it’s just the first loss: Soon, Poppy’s grandmother’s journal’s gone, then The Odyssey, and more. The loss is heartbreaking, but Sampson’s a wonderful companion, particularly as Poppy’s finding middle school a tough adjustment. Hartman’s premise is beguiling—plenty of readers will identify with Poppy, both as a fellow bibliophile and as a kid struggling to adapt. Poppy’s repeatedly expressed faith that unveiling Sampson will bring some sort of vindication wears thin, but that does not detract from the central drama. It’s a pity that the named real-world books Poppy reads are notably lacking in diversity; a story about the power of literature so limited in imagination lets both itself and readers down. Main characters are cued White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. Chapters open with atmospheric spot art. (This review has been updated to reflect the final illustrations.)
A pleasing premise for book lovers. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780316448222
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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