An unsettling, engaging dream-world adventure
When pragmatic Stella’s imaginative twin brother, Cole, loses his spirit in the dream world, she must rescue him before he is consumed by shadow creatures who thrive on the creative brightness of human beings.
It begins when Cole investigates something he sees moving in the subway and becomes so spooked he leaves his treasured notebook of stories behind. Cole’s behavior swiftly changes, and Stella begins to have dreams that land her in the Dreamway, the place where all human beings go when they dream. There she encounters Anyway, a Door Mouse who just happens to possess a torn piece of Cole’s notebook. Anyway informs Sheila that her brother’s spirit has been taken by a Chimerath, and to rescue him, they must get to the Nightmare Line. Stella struggles to navigate her waking hours, during which Cole is becoming angrier and more violent, and her time in the Dreamway, where she and Anyway, with the help of a few Dreamway employees, work to find Cole before his light is completely drained. Though the worldbuilding can be arbitrary and is largely delivered in expository dumps from Anyway, this tale has a beguiling, appropriately Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland–steampunk feel. The book subscribes to the white default. Stella has a childhood stroke–induced physical disability by day; although it seems to disappear by night as she bravely traverses the unpredictable landscape of the dream world, Anyway tells her she is not healed, adding a layer of healthy realism.
An unsettling, engaging dream-world adventure . (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-237111-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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