Sparkling characters highlight this diverting illustrated fantasy tale.
The Jewel Riders protect their kingdom from wild magic and a villain’s resurgence in Bellaire’s YA graphic novel, a tie-in to the mid-1990s American television series.
Princess Gwenevere is the future queen of Avalon. But she doesn’t wish to marry her fiance, Drake, even if their union would guarantee stability for the kingdom—not if that means she’ll no longer be a Jewel Rider. Gwenevere and her Jewel Rider friends wield magic stones and ride on winged unicorns, like purple-haired Fallon’s purple-maned companion, Moondance. Something is amiss in Avalon—creatures suddenly attacking the kingdom only mark the beginning. Gwenevere’s fellow Jewel Rider Tamara worries about the wizard Merlin, who’s giving her magic lessons, as his atypical grumpiness seems to be hiding an unexplained resentment. At the same time, there’s a potential wild-magic outbreak starting in the forest. When a dark-magic-using villain makes a shocking return, Gwen may once again have to don her helmeted Jewel Rider ensemble and join Tamara and Fallon in defending Avalon from evil (“There was no telling what measures we’d need to take”). Bellaire develops the cast exceedingly well as the females take the story’s reins, with Gwen craving independence and Fallon leading “the Pack” of wolf-riding warriors. The male characters, including Drake, the king, and the entertainingly unpredictable Merlin, shine just as brightly. This story captures the animated television series’ essence while making subtle contemporary updates, such as the king learning to greet with fist bumps. There’s an unmistakable positivity to the narrative, which encourages openness and demonstrates that vulnerability isn’t always a weakness. Tamara, who catches on to the kingdom’s general unease faster than anyone else, easily steals this opening volume. There’s plenty more for future books to explore, like Fallon’s duties as Pack leader and the villain’s origin. Carreon’s illustrations portray characters in the style of Japanese anime, with doe eyes and exaggerated facial expressions. The images deftly exemplify character, like the persistent clutter in Merlin’s isolated cottage, and are rendered in lavish pastels.
Sparkling characters highlight this diverting illustrated fantasy tale.Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9781960578921
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Maverick
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions.
A teenage girl refuses a medical procedure to remove her heart and her emotions.
June lives in a future in which a reclusive Scientist has pioneered a procedure to remove hearts, thus eliminating all “sadness, anxiety, and anger.” The downside is that it numbs pleasurable feelings, too. Most people around June have had the procedure done; for young people, in part because doing so helps them become more focused and successful. Before long, June is the only one among her peers who still has her heart. When her parents decide it’s time for her to have the procedure so she can become more focused in school, June hatches a plan to pretend to go through with it. She also investigates a way to restore her beloved sister’s heart, joining forces with Max, a classmate who’s also researching the Scientist because he has started to feel again despite having had his heart removed. The pair’s journey is somewhat rushed and improbable, as is the resolution they achieve. However, the story’s message feels relevant and relatable to teens, and the artwork effectively sets the scene, with bursts of color popping throughout an otherwise black-and-white landscape, reflecting the monochromatic, heartless reality of June’s world. There are no ethnic or cultural markers in the text; June has paper-white skin and dark hair, and Max has dark skin and curly black hair.
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions. (Graphic speculative fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780063116214
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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