Nevertheless, the story offers rich fare for those precocious younger readers who can’t get enough; with luck they will...
Kepi’s name means “tempest,” and it suits, in this tale that purports to reveal the origins of fairies.
In 2530 B.C.E. Egypt, as the young daughter of a miller, her impetuousness lands her and her pet baboon captive on a boat sailing north on the Nile. As the journey progresses, plans to escape her kidnapper evolve into a quest to speak to the Pharaoh in the capital city, Ineb Hedj, to complain about his unfairness to his people. Kepi’s spiritedness only seems to grow as she gets farther from her family, and the narrative progression may strike readers as unusual as her character only intensifies, rather than showing signs of change. The final, brief climax fulfills the arc—or rather, arrow—as Kepi and the companions she’s gathered are transformed by the goddess Hathor into the world’s first fairies. Napoli’s text is full of detail of setting and culture that should enthrall young fans of historical fiction, though its resolution may leave them confounded. Conversely, readers who come to the story expecting fairy fantasy will be disappointed.
Nevertheless, the story offers rich fare for those precocious younger readers who can’t get enough; with luck they will accommodate any confusion and may move onto some of Napoli’s more polished works, a little later on. (Historical fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-166793-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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