Levine continues her winning series of Princess Tales (The Princess Test and The Fairy Mistake, both 1999), creating two new stories from well-known classics. In For Biddle’s Sake, elements of Rapunzel, the Frog Prince, and various quest tales recombine. Parsley, so named because that’s all she wants to eat, forces her dad to steal it from the very disagreeable fairy Bombina. When she catches him—just after she gets out of jail for the crime of not getting along with humans—she takes Parsley to live with her. Parsley grows up so charming she even warms Bombina’s heart; it’s that smile, even if her teeth are green. Bombina’s specialty is turning people and things into toads, and one day, quite accidentally, she turns Parsley into one. Parsley, meanwhile, is smitten with Tansy, the young princeling of the kingdom of Biddle, whose hopes for ruling wisely and well are thwarted by the fact that his obnoxious twin brothers are older. The king sends the boys on a quest, Parsley assists Tansy while in her toad guise, Tansy falls in love—Parsley’s smile is lovely even when she’s a toad—and breaks the spell, and Bombina even manages not to toadify the twins. The Fairy’s Return conflates the weeping princess and the sticky goose. Robin the baker’s son falls in love with Princess Lark, but they cannot marry because he’s a commoner. Robin makes wonderful jokes that his father and twin brothers never let him finish. They are poets and wordsmiths and consider Robin simpleminded. (The twins make up words. Their father spouts couplets, wherein the last word is always a synonym for the one that would rhyme. Readers will have a fine time with that one.) The fairy Ethelinda has been flying for years, afraid to bungle her human interaction, but manages to solve Robin and Lark’s dilemma with judicious use of the sticky goose and her ability to consume vast quantities of food and drink. This is all done in deliriously funny and well-wrought prose, full of sly wit and clever asides. Getting all the references is not required for laughing aloud. (Fractured fairy tales. 7-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-000094-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.
Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80215-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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