A convincing, compelling new time-travel series rife with Tudor drama.
A “time gypsy,” 11-year-old Rose travels between 21st-century Indianapolis and 16th-century England searching for her father.
Budding fashionista Rose designs clothing and writes a popular fashion blog. She’s never known her father, so following her mother’s untimely death, Rose goes to live with her slightly dotty grandmother, who treats her with “general indifference.” At school she’s immediately targeted by the Mean Queens, a trio of cruel girls known for destructive bullying. Drawn to her grandmother’s otherworldly Tudor-style greenhouse, Rose tumbles backward in time to Hatfield, home of Princess Elizabeth, banished daughter of Henry VIII. Hired as Elizabeth’s chambermaid, Rose finds herself embroiled in palace politics. When she receives a locket containing a modern photo of her with her mother and an unidentified man, Rose suspects he could be her father. Toggling between contemporary life with her grandmother and 16th-century life searching for her father, Rose fits amazingly (even incredibly) well into past and present, growing especially close with dairymaid Franny. Diary entries, letters, blog posts, and photos add pizzazz. A strong subtext comparing contemporary teen bullying to Tudor mockery of court dwarfs and fools proves relevant, though the term “gypsy” goes unquestioned. The ending offers a revelation about Franny and leaves Rose in the 16th century, ripe for further adventure.
A convincing, compelling new time-travel series rife with Tudor drama. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-269325-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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