A spin on a familiar classic that gets off to a strong start.
Reimagining Peter Pan through a Scandinavian lens, this translated series opener from Norway sends 14-year-old Sonja through a magic portal for encounters with trolls, talking animals, witches, and a Viking earl with a prosthetic hand in the form of a silver hook.
The night after Sonja’s confirmation, a source of unhappiness for the free-spirited, outdoorsy girl, who doesn’t want to settle down, the northern lights dance across the sky above her village. She awakens and encounters Espen, an oddly familiar boy with pointed ears and a tail whom she recognizes from her beloved peripatetic uncle’s drawings. Espen tells her that he’s from another place, somewhere the trolls and Vikings Uncle Henrik draws really exist, and Sonja flies away with him through a portal. But when Uncle Henrik shows up to rescue her, he’s immediately captured and thrown into a dungeon by hostile trolls. The art includes strongly atmospheric forest landscapes and magical characters ranging from magnificently frightening monsters to enigmatic figures in eerie masks. The dialogue has a colloquial flavor with flashes of mischief: Espen is “kind of like a mother,” says one troll. “More like a weird uncle,” says another. The open ending will leave readers anticipating the next volume. Most human and humanoid characters present white; in place of Barrie’s original Native Americans, this world includes a girl who is cued as Sámi.
A spin on a familiar classic that gets off to a strong start. (author’s note, sketches) (Graphic fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780593726914
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Inklore/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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