Outstanding.
A 10-year-old girl from Cornwall faces the truth about her mother.
Only child Julia is spending the summer with her parents at the Unst lighthouse in the Shetland Islands. Her father was hired to automate the lighthouse’s light, and her mother, a scientist, wants to find the rare Greenland shark, a species that can live up to 400 years. On a trip into the village, Julia meets Kin, whose family owns the combined laundromat/library. Julia soon realizes that Kin is being bullied by the local boys because his parents are from India. No stranger to bullying herself, as she was targeted by girls because of her weight, Julia (who is White) and Kin develop a friendship based around looking at the stars through Kin’s father’s telescope. Then Julia’s mother, who’s been repeatedly turned down for grants to fund her shark expedition, begins exhibiting more erratic behavior. Even as her father tries to reassure Julia that it is just a phase, she senses her mother’s withdrawal and thinks that if she can find the shark by herself, her mother will get better. Written in the first person with a compelling dry wit, this story addresses the tough topics of bullying and bipolar disorder with poise and empathy. The potent illustrations, rendered starkly in black, white, and yellow, put it in a class by itself. Often spanning double-page spreads, these masterpieces of design create a powerful atmosphere that deepens, enriches, and fortifies the narrative.
Outstanding. (further reading, resources) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-4549-4868-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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