A skillful use of verse; moral conundrums and strange plot twists offer even stronger draws.
A teenager sets out to rescue her cursed older brothers in this verse retelling of the Grimms’ “The Seven Ravens.”
Upon learning at last that her brothers—all named Jack except the youngest, Robyn—had been transformed into birds at her birth by her father in a fit of pique, 15-year-old April resolutely undertakes what becomes a weary search for them. In the most notable wrinkle that Elliott adds to the original, Robyn, who had always felt like the odd one out anyway, quite enjoys being a raven, and when April climactically makes an extreme sacrifice to free her brothers, he is left separate from the others once again. Occasional white-on-black pages and Cai’s infrequent but brooding images of feathery swirls and distant turned-away silhouettes add further atmosphere to the sometimes-incantatory poetry. Following his practice in Bull (2017) and Voices (2019), the author employs multiple narrators, experiments with different verse models or set forms for each poem, and closes with analytical notes on the latter. April’s heroic sacrifices in the name of family ties are admirable, and the fact that they turn out not to be entirely appreciated offers chewy food for thought.
A skillful use of verse; moral conundrums and strange plot twists offer even stronger draws. (Verse fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-25211-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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