A safe but sophisticated teen quest fantasy brimming with magical ideas.
In this middle-grade sequel, a teenager must follow her stepbrother through a space-time portal and rescue him from an alien world.
As the result of her previous escapade, 14-year-old Winnie Harris owns a Frama-scope—a telescopelike device that allows her to locate and widen existing tears in the space-time fabric. When her 6-year-old stepbrother, Mikey, vanishes through a tear, Winnie and 15-year-old Kip Skyler (her annoying magician friend and maybe crush) jump through after him. They find themselves on Hutra, a planet where portals arise periodically but seem to accommodate only one-way travel. Mikey is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Winnie and Kip encounter Nor, a 15-year-old noble, who is searching for a 6-year-old portal castaway (his friend’s brother Kinny). Nor and Kinny come from the Reserve, a walled-off, tightly policed area of Hutra. Nor is an “animal communicator,” which means he can enter animals’ thoughts, speak with them, “and become part of their inner worlds.” Nor is talented, but his scruples put him at odds with the Portal Authority, a powerful agency charged with investigating the portals—and probing any being unfortunate enough to come through. Mikey and Kinny, it transpires, have changed places. Winnie, Kip, and Nor team up, but can they evade the Portal Authority and restore both boys to their homes? Supplee employs an omniscient, past-tense narrative, mostly from Winnie’s or Nor’s points of view. The easily digestible prose moves at an effective pace, lingering overtly on character moments but never to the adventure’s detriment. Winnie and Kip come to the story fresh from their Frama-12 (2022) exploits and aren’t afforded much development beyond their bickering relationship that sometimes seems at odds with their predicament. But Nor starts with a fresh slate and shines as a protagonist—privileged but principled, rebellious but deeply affectionate. His Uncle Trey provides likable support without undermining the teens’ independence. Supplee shows a deft hand at worldbuilding, and Hutra’s intriguing mix of SF and fantasy elements suggests a setting that could sustain additional stories beyond Winnie and Kip’s involvement. Indeed, Nor’s coming-of-age and associated troubles seem more likely to stoke readers’ interest than Winnie and Kip’s straightforward rescue mission. That said, the combined storylines work well together and will keep young readers engrossed to the end.
A safe but sophisticated teen quest fantasy brimming with magical ideas.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781509247479
Page Count: 292
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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