Readers will banish themselves from the ordinary world to finish this book in a flash.
Fifth-grader Rupert Campbell lives in a world that combines Roald Dahl’s Witches and Louis Sachar’s Wayside School.
Absurd and magical, it is still informed by the trials of children: trouble with friends and teachers. Extremely mean, scary, strange and dangerous teachers. Mrs. Frabbleknacker refuses to allow the fifth graders to speak to one another—even outside of class. She has been known to physically pick up and throw students out of the room when they get on her wrong side. The day she makes the students search for one paper clip in Gliverstoll’s town dump, Rupert decides to change his fate. Infused with a Mr. Weasley–like curiosity, nonmagical Rupert yearns to learn more about the witches in the area. Against his mother’s firm directions, he answers an ad for a witch’s apprentice. Quirky and hopelessly dramatic, Witchling Two desperately needs to pass her exams to become a full-fledged witch, or she will be exiled. Rupert is her only, unlikely hope. Together, they struggle to solve two looming disasters—passing the exam and surviving Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s class! Magaziner’s youthful narrative voice is distinctly aural: Her characters swish and swoop, clomp and screech. Her storytelling cauldron mixes the right balance of bizarre and banal, and she turns up the heat as the witch exam approaches.
Readers will banish themselves from the ordinary world to finish this book in a flash. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8037-39185
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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