A reverent, wondrous feast for the senses and a balm for bruised souls.
An Arctic fox leads a mother and daughter back to one another.
Twelve-year-old Leila Saleh lives in London with her aunt and cousin. When she was 5, she, Mum, Amma, and Mona fled war-torn Syria; Leila has flashes of memories of life in Damascus and their harrowing departure. Mum’s the director of the Tromsø Arctic Institute, and for the six years they’ve been apart, the pair have grown emotionally distant, making their summer reunion tense. Leila barely arrives in Norway before they set off on an expedition on a chartered fishing boat along with divorced scientist Liv Nilsen, whose own young daughter is visiting from her father’s home in Bergen. Miso, the blue fox Mum and Liv have been tracking since her birth on Svalbard, is moving much faster and farther than is usual for her species over shifting sea ice toward Greenland. Her journey offers critical data about the impact of climate change. The pursuit of Miso includes awe-inspiring vistas and wildlife as well as painful schisms and quiet moments of repair and reconnection among the human travelers. Segments from Miso’s perspective evoke empathy without anthropomorphizing the wild creature, and striking artwork in blue, black, and white vividly conveys the remarkable setting. This novel lightly, compassionately, and subtly prompts reflection on the interconnectedness of all beings as we navigate life’s challenges and the importance of sharing stories and transcending borders.
A reverent, wondrous feast for the senses and a balm for bruised souls. (creators’ note) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781454954347
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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