A superb, action-packed series starter.
Serwa Boateng’s parents are a big deal in the Abomofuo, a secret organization of hunters of dangerous, magical creatures of Ghanaian lore like the adze—dangerous, vampiric shape-shifters.
Serwa, who comes from an Akan immigrant family, has trained to be a Slayer, a magical hunter imbued with power directly from the gods. When an adze attack leads to a near-fatal confrontation with her parents’ longtime black magic rival, Serwa is hurried away to live with her aunt in idyllic Rocky Gorge, Maryland, and enter nonmagical middle school while her Slayer parents pursue the perpetrator. Rocky Gorge, however, has a history of supernatural secrets that are directly tied to Serwa and her parents in ways that can’t remain hidden much longer, especially as an adze threat starts wreaking havoc upon her arrival. Luckily, Serwa makes friends and immediately enlists an army of four charming, complicated 12-year-olds into her battle against the adze, who could be masquerading as anyone. Roxy, Mateo, Eunju, Gavin, and Serwa—alongside mmoatia Boulder, a plucky, gnomelike Slayer partner—form a powerful team thanks to their quintessentially middle school bond based on bad jokes, fun sleepovers, and much-needed emotional support. It’s a bond so impressive the gods take notice, and although there are some unforeseen obstacles to defeating the adze, Serwa discovers more about herself than she could’ve imagined. This textured, richly mythological story will keep the pages turning as readers are drawn into Serwa’s world.
A superb, action-packed series starter. (author’s note, glossary, Adinkra dictionary) (Adventure. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-06636-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents/Disney
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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BOOK REVIEW
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