Dynamic, evocative color and movement easily carry this allegorical fantasy wherever the text is weak.
Mel, angry at adults who never listen, is pulled into a magical world where she learns she’s the Chosen One.
Chasing her cat across the rooftop of her apartment building, the bespectacled redhead falls into a neighboring home, where a white-bearded old man is taking tea with three talking animals wearing 19th-century clothing. They’ve been waiting for her, they explain eagerly, because only she can break the curses of Malcape the Magnificent, who turned young Otto into the old man Mel sees before her. Mel’s journey past animal tea parties and magical royals has illustrations that sometimes evoke Wonderland or Oz. The text doesn’t always make clear sense in context, perhaps a result of the translation from the original Italian, and many narrative elements are dropped when they’re no longer useful for the allegory. (Whatever happens to Otto’s talking-animal friends? Why doesn’t the Book of Return, which brings the dead back to life, remain important?) But gorgeous color and action are what keep pages turning, not the quest itself. Memories are rendered in sepia or black and white while the magical land of Here&Now is richly saturated. The interplay between different color schemes, sometimes within a single panel, plays deliciously with mood. The often wordless two-page spreads cleverly evoke movement or the passage of time. Some signage and sound effects are not translated, though meaning is always clear from illustration. All human characters are White.
Dynamic, evocative color and movement easily carry this allegorical fantasy wherever the text is weak. (Graphic fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30124-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
An effort as insubstantial as any spirit.
Eleven-year-old Maria Russo helps her charlatan mother hoodwink customers, but Maria has a spirited secret.
Maria’s mother, the psychic Madame Destine, cons widows out of their valuables with the assistance of their apartment building’s super, Mr. Fox. Madame Destine home-schools Maria, and because Destine is afraid of unwanted attention, she forbids Maria from talking to others. Maria is allowed to go to the library, where new librarian Ms. Madigan takes an interest in Maria that may cause her trouble. Meanwhile, Sebastian, Maria’s new upstairs neighbor, would like to be friends. All this interaction makes it hard for Maria to keep her secret: that she is visited by Edward, a spirit who tells her the actual secrets of Madame Destine’s clients via spirit writing. When Edward urges Maria to help Mrs. Fisher, Madame Destine’s most recent mark, Maria must overcome her shyness and her fear of her mother—helping Mrs. Fisher may be the key to the mysterious past Maria uncovers and a brighter future. Alas, picture-book–creator Ford’s middle-grade debut is a muddled, melodramatic mystery with something of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel: In addition to the premise, there’s a tragically dead father, a mysterious family tree, and the Beat poets. Sluggish pacing; stilted, unrealistic dialogue; cartoonishly stock characters; and unattractive, flat illustrations make this one to miss. Maria and Sebastian are both depicted with brown skin, hers lighter than his; the other principals appear to be white.
An effort as insubstantial as any spirit. (author’s note) (Paranormal mystery. 7-10)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20567-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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