A ghostly mystery steeped in birdsong and fairy-tale magic.
An enchanting meld of ghostly magic, inspiration from a beloved fairy tale, the otherworldly rituals of summer camp, and the thrills of an adolescent summer spent in nature.
When anxious, claustrophobic, 12-year-old Bee is forced to go to a bird-watching summer camp, she doesn’t expect to love it. Born with supersensitive hearing, Bee is prepared to spend the summer of 1960 as an outsider at Camp Blue Heron—and sure enough, some mean girls steal her flashlight and leave her terrified and stranded in the dark, half a mile from her tent. Fortunately, she meets Zippy, a spitfire with asthma who has incredible night vision and a mystery to solve. Each night the Hawks, the camp’s second-oldest group of girls, have fresh batteries for their flashlights, but come morning, the batteries are inexplicably dead. By all appearances, the Hawks appear to be asleep where they belong, leaving the staff flummoxed. Zippy and Bee decide to investigate. Together, they uncover a twisty mystery that’s stranger than anyone could have imagined. In the manner of writers like Anne Ursu and Lauren Wolk, Cotter trusts readers with deep descriptions and a languid buildup to the action. Her writing is ethereal and evocative, evoking the dangers and glittering possibilities of summer nights away from home. Bee and most other characters present white, and Zippy is Jewish.
A ghostly mystery steeped in birdsong and fairy-tale magic. (“The Twelve Dancing Princesses”) (Ghost story. 10-13)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781774885550
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
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. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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