Colorful characters headline this imaginative, witty tale.
A young girl befriends Danish elves and a charming snowy owl in this middle-grade fantasy debut and series opener.
Ten-year-old Anne Katrine loses one of her favorite people—her grandmother. Her parents settle the late woman’s estate in Denmark and leave their daughter in Pennsylvania for what was meant to be a temporary stay but becomes indefinite. Now she’s stuck with cruel relatives, like spiteful Aunt Jess and bullying cousin Neena. But things aren’t all bad. In the surrounding woods, Anne Katrine meets a couple of affable men—each no more than 5 inches tall. Yul and Nissa are Danish elves who offer her magic seeds so she can be elf-sized, too (or return to her regular size when necessary). They need her help retrieving Yul’s laptop, which Neena swiped, thinking the tiny object was a bracelet charm that Anne Katrine stole. Meanwhile, the elves hitch rides from warmhearted snowy owl Dumbert and sneak into Anne Katrine’s attic bedroom for late-night visits. Yul and Nissa make Pennsylvania life so much better; unfortunately, they plan to travel to a faraway land to restock their magic seeds, and Anne Katrine, who misses her parents, will be lonely once again. Newman’s delightful story is reminiscent of “Snow White” and “Cinderella.” The appealing young hero radiates tenderness and perseveres despite horrid treatment, especially from Aunt Jess, who, it seems, hates her niece. Nissa stands out among the vibrant characters; he has an extensive vocabulary and likes a good pun (“Owl be right back”). Newman wisely keeps the plot uncomplicated, though there’s a lot left unresolved. The author has a series in the works and ends this book with the promise of even greater adventures awaiting Anne Katrine. Gadotti’s black-and-white sketches enliven the pages, from Anne Katrine’s bandaging Dumbert’s wound to the Pennsylvania woods.
Colorful characters headline this imaginative, witty tale.Pub Date: June 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73629-460-4
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Apex Collaborative, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
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