Shame on you, Gerald Morris, for treating the Matter of Britain with insufficient solemnity.
Prophecies. A young knight learns that they’re just not to be trusted in this fourth of the light-hearted Arthurian Knights’ Tales.
A seeress’ ominous prediction that he would grow up to be known as the noblest knight in England but bring misfortune to all his companions and deliver the Dubious…er, Dolorous Stroke weighs heavily on Sir Balin of the Two Swords—but, in the end, proves less accurate than his own mother’s prediction that he’d grow up to marry a nice northern girl. This last happens after much knightly questing, a certain amount of slaughter, plenty of side banter and fateful meetings with both Balin’s skeptical brother Sir “Oh, put a cork in it!” Balan and levelheaded Lady Annalise, the Questing Lady. Said banter shows off to excellent advantage Morris’ability to put a 21st-century spin on the ancient legends: “ ‘I bring this enchanted sword, seeking the one knight who is able to draw it from its sheath!’ ‘Stuck, is it?’ asked Sir Kay. ‘I used to have a sword that would do that,’ said another knight. ‘Have you tried jiggling the hilt?’ ” Renier liberally salts the short chapters with scenes of armored knights looking startled or vigorously clobbering one another.
Shame on you, Gerald Morris, for treating the Matter of Britain with insufficient solemnity. (Snicker.) (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-68085-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
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The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits.
Who needs dragons when there are Terrible Lizards to be fought?
Having recklessly boasted to King Arthur and the court that he’d slain 40 dragons, Sir Erec can hardly refuse when Merlin offers him more challenging foes…and so it is that in no time (so to speak), Erec, with bookish Sir Hector, the silent and enigmatic Black Knight, and blustering Sir Bors with his thin but doughty squire, Mel, in tow, are hewing away at fearsome creatures sporting natural armor and weapons every bit as effective as knightly ones. Happily, while all the glorious mashing and bashing leads to awesome feats aplenty—who would suspect that a ravening T. Rex could be decked by a well-placed punch to the jaw?—when the dust settles neither bloodshed nor permanent injury has been dealt to either side. Better yet, not even the stunning revelation that two of the Three Stooges–style bumblers aren’t what they seem (“Anyone else here a girl?”) keeps the questers from developing into a well-knit team capable of repeatedly saving one another’s bacon. Phelan endows the all-white human cast with finely drawn, eloquently expressive faces but otherwise works in a loose, movement-filled style, pitting his clanking crew against an almost nonstop onslaught of toothy monsters in a monochrome mix of single scenes and occasional wordless sequential panels.
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268623-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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