Dickens would enjoy this book, and so will Aiken fans who have been waiting for a full-scale 19th century novel ever since The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and its successors. Here Joan Aiken follows all the conventions of Dickensian fiction with just a little extra to satisfy jaded contemporary tastes. The Grimsby mansion at Midnight Court houses not one, but two unjustly disinherited orphans, Lucas Bell and the French-speaking Anna-Marie (she a daughter of Midnight Court's talented, but improvident former owner, Sir Denzil Murgatroyd who "while still at college. . . constructed a scientific instrument for measuring the depth of potholes"). And the source of Grimsby's fortune, the Midnight Mill boasts, in addition to the usual horrors of child labor and workers' oppression, a peculiarly nasty feature known as the pressing room, where a giant press sticks wool to inferior grade carpets and occasionally crushes children too slow to get out of its way. Of course, after Midnight Court and the churlish Sir Randolph Grimsby go up in flames one night, Anna-Marie is reduced to working in the mill where she clashes with the extortion ring leader Bludward (who gets around in a steam driven wheelchair). Lucas is forced to muck about in the Blastburn sewers scavenging for valuables. The kindly tutor Mr. Oakapple (who has a mysterious history and two fingers missing from his violin-playing hand) is incapacitated in the town infirmary. Lady Murgatroyd is discovered living incognito in the icehouse where she has been overlooked by everyone for the past ten years. And Grimsby's henchmen are on the loose hoping to line their own pockets. Lucas and Anna-Marie are two innocents in a world grotesquely distorted by greed, and while the evil get their comeuppance, the riches the children were due to inherit have already been squandered by Grimsby and his ilk. It must be admitted that Ms. Aiken's staging of the human comedy ("this great dark town". . . "a m-moocky old place but he loved it") owes a lot to her literary predecessors and, perhaps, more to the modern reader's need to approach innocence with tongue in cheek. But it works beautifully on more than one level, and Midnight Court earns its place in the landscape of humorous fiction.
Pub Date: April 22, 1974
ISBN: 0618196250
Page Count: 307
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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