This eclectic world of Chinese culture, fantasy, and nonstop action is worth exploring.
A family prophecy and long-kept secrets spell out a new destiny for a Chinese clan.
Young throws readers right into the fray in his latest steampunk graphic novel. A motorized village, revealed to be the Wong Clan’s, is returning to their ancestral home, the Old Land. With the encouragement of his dubious adviser, Quan, Lord Wong believes that in returning they will fulfill a prophecy. Meanwhile Lord Wong’s willful young son, Prince Sing, has been seeing visions about his mother’s death and what initiated his ancestors’ exodus from their homeland. When the clan is attacked by the reptilian Dragon Tribe for trespassing and past injustices, Sing is lost. Presumed dead, Sing is in fact in the company of Ming the Mystic and a colossal black-and-white feline with a single horn. Themes of betrayal and true identities, with magic woven throughout, create an action-packed adventure. The neatly aligned panels are filled with movement thanks to Young’s definitively lined, bold, cartoon style. Young’s choice of a neon color palette and artful use of shading bring a vibrancy and heightened emotional depth to each scene. Though the plot teems with characters and complicated interwoven backstories, an even pace and balanced story are maintained. A few lingering questions at the end are a small price to pay for the fun.
This eclectic world of Chinese culture, fantasy, and nonstop action is worth exploring. (Graphic steampunk. 10-14)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-36330-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes.
Eleven-year-old Georgie sets out to the rescue after seeing his dad snatched into thin air by a hideous figure.
In a confusing debut that reads like a first draft, the kidnapping impels the young slingshot expert to go from doggedly enduring vicious bullying at school to intrepidly plunging after his father through a portal to Scatterplot, an otherworldly realm where the memories of everyone in New York are uploaded by omnilingual Scribes. Classmates Apurva Aluwhalia (who’s cued South Asian) and Roscoe Harris (who reads Black and is confined to a role that’s largely limited to comic relief), each motivated by their own concerns, follow white-presenting Georgie on his adventure. In Scatterplot, they must remain alert for the “tribe” of “bad people” called Altercockers, formed by the exiled Rollie D. Meanwhile, Flint Eldritch, the menacing figure who was responsible for Georgie’s father’s disappearance, is bent on using the Aetherquill, a magical pen that can rewrite reality in unpredictable ways, to replace all those recorded memories with fake ones. In a story that’s marred by stilted dialogue, flat characterization, and awkward turns of phrase, Georgie and his friends, along with Scatterplot siblings Edie and Ore, embark on a quest to save both his father and the entire realm. The puss-oozing, misshapen villain Flint, crawling with bugs, does at least provide a memorably lurid element of horror. The novel ends with an abrupt cliffhanger.
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798886453164
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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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