Wild worldbuilding and the colorful cast will delight.
Stepsiblings run into world-hopping, magical trouble in this series opener from How To Train Your Dragon author Cowell.
After an in medias res opening teasing dangers about an alien world, the narration flashes back to where it began for two sets of siblings in a blended family. K2 and Izzabird O’Hero only agree with Theo and Mabel Smith, their stepsiblings, on two things—their love for shared half sibling, baby Annipeck and their wish to unblend their blended family. Theo’s convinced the O’Heros are witches; Izzabird wishes her relatives would hurry up and teach her their secret Magic. But secrecy is thrown out the window by the arrival of an Otherworlder in the family washing machine—bounty hunter Horizabel Delft. There’s also a robot assassin and a dastardly pirate. They’re searching for a child with the gift of making Alternative Atlases that show passages between worlds. The child in question? The least stereotypically heroic O’Hero, cautious bully-magnet K2, who has dyslexia and amblyopia. To protect their family, the kids end up venturing to a human-hating world where they must make amends for the O’Heros’ mixed legacies and learn what it means to be a family. Cowell throws all sorts of fantastical obstacles in the kids’ ways, using action to add tension to the humorous narration that is enhanced by her frequent illustrations. The Smiths are depicted with dark skin and curly hair, and the O’Hero children are pale and freckled.
Wild worldbuilding and the colorful cast will delight. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780316536394
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
