Inventive, with intriguing heroines and despicable villains, but doesn’t quite land the happy ending.
Cinderella and her fairy godmother both get new stories in this twist on the classic fairy tale.
Fourteen-year-old Bess Wickham lives in a dazzling glass house, surrounded by a rainbow garden of glass flowers. The youngest of three daughters in a glassmaking family, Bess resents the expectation that she’ll join them in creating sterile imitations of the natural world. She’s delighted, then, when her father agrees to let her grow a garden. As it flourishes, she invites her animal friends to visit and pose for the figurines that her family hopes to create in their images. But when the creatures she loves start disappearing, Bess uncovers a sinister secret and flees into the forest, where she learns to access the ancient magic of the druids, claiming the Celtic title of bandia, or fairy godmother. Meanwhile, the Wickhams take in orphaned third cousin Estrella and manipulate her into servitude. Readers will shiver as the Wickhams find ever more wicked ways to capture life in glass. Soon, clever Estrella, who has a passion for astronomy, seems doomed. As abruptly as a carriage transforming back into a pumpkin at midnight, however, the story ends, with conflicts being resolved, secret identities revealed, and declarations of love unfolding in short order. The overly neat conclusion to a story that initially introduced appealing complexity to a familiar tale is disappointing. Main characters present white.
Inventive, with intriguing heroines and despicable villains, but doesn’t quite land the happy ending. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780063294028
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
File under “laugh riot.”
A rogue spell-check program’s bid to transform all life-forms into that eminently useful office item, the paper clip, touches off a fresh round of lunar lunacy.
Predicated on the entirely reasonable premise that eliminating all spelling and grammar errors everywhere would logically lead to the necessity of exterminating carbon-based life in the universe, this third series entry combines high stakes with daffy banter and daring exploits. CheckMate—a chipper, jumped-up editing program—has invented the Transmogratron, a giant laser that will fulfill its ultimate goals in both the cyber world and “meatspace.” Facing challenges as random as prankster lunar unicorns and a disarmingly motherly Motherboard, scowling First Cat joins a motley crew of diversely carbon- and silicon-based allies, led by the pearlescent Queen of the Moon. They’re in a race to the finish—diverted occasionally by, for instance, a relentlessly punny comic-book interlude featuring a pair of literal and figurative Pool Sharks. They ultimately triumph thanks to teamwork and moxie. Following a celebratory party and toasts to “new friends…and steadfast comrades” (and, of course, “MEOW”), the story’s energetic, brightly colored panels close with a reveal of the next volume. (“I always hate it when comics end by announcing a sequel. SO CRINGE!” declares an authorial stand-in.) It can’t come too soon.
File under “laugh riot.” (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063315280
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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