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
A pleasing premise for book lovers.
A fantasy-loving bookworm makes a wonderful, terrible bargain.
When sixth grader Poppy Woodlock’s historic preservationist parents move the family to the Oregon coast to work on the titular stately home, Poppy’s sure she’ll find magic. Indeed, the exiled water nymph in the manor’s ruined swimming pool grants a wish, but: “Magic isn’t free. It cosssts.” The price? Poppy’s favorite book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In return she receives Sampson, a winged lion cub who is everything Poppy could have hoped for. But she soon learns that the nymph didn’t take just her own physical book—she erased Narnia from Poppy’s world. And it’s just the first loss: Soon, Poppy’s grandmother’s journal’s gone, then The Odyssey, and more. The loss is heartbreaking, but Sampson’s a wonderful companion, particularly as Poppy’s finding middle school a tough adjustment. Hartman’s premise is beguiling—plenty of readers will identify with Poppy, both as a fellow bibliophile and as a kid struggling to adapt. Poppy’s repeatedly expressed faith that unveiling Sampson will bring some sort of vindication wears thin, but that does not detract from the central drama. It’s a pity that the named real-world books Poppy reads are notably lacking in diversity; a story about the power of literature so limited in imagination lets both itself and readers down. Main characters are cued White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. Chapters open with atmospheric spot art. (This review has been updated to reflect the final illustrations.)
A pleasing premise for book lovers. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780316448222
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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