The Potkoorok, Turongs and Nyols — those trick-playing spirits from aboriginal lore who helped save Sydney's Botanical Gardens from a parking lot developer in An Older Kind of Magic (KR, 1972), are less cooperative when the human hero's enemy is an ancient rocklike monster who shares the mythological creatures' displeasure with the crew from town that has begun to clear the ridge at Wongadilla. Simon Brent, newly orphaned and come to live on the remote sheep run with old Charlie Waters and his sister Edie, is amused when the mischievous spirits dump the grader into the pond one night and hide the bulldozer inside the mountain the next, but he is terrified by the angry howl of the primordial Norgun, recently arrived at the spot after a slow 80-year journey from his long-time home to the south. Unlike most grownups in juvenile fantasy, Charlie and Edie remember the "old Pot-K" and the Turongs from their childhood and totally accept Simon's assertion that that large mossy rock on the mountain is really a deeply menacing monster. The various elf-creatures, though agreeing that the Nargun does not belong there, are loth to cross him, but Charlie in an effort to drive the monster away manages to start up the muffler-less dozer inside the mountain — inducing instead a confrontation between rock and metal as the machine is wrecked and the Nargun trapped inside by an avalanche that seals up the cave's opening. Wrightson's considerable skill in managing texture and tension ensures that admirers of serious fantasy will breathe the air of Wongadill along with Simon, and to her credit the symbols and issues here represent a perspective more complex than is usual in fictional conflicts between technology and nature. But Simon's dreaded earth monster hardly justifies the author's overreaching attempt to make of him a timeless, literally star-shaking occasion for "naked pity" and "naked fear."
Pub Date: March 20, 1974
ISBN: 1846470765
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1974
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
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
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