A standout SF adventure.
A middle school misfit finds his people.
Jake Wind isn’t exactly an ordinary 12-year-old. For one thing, his dad’s a proctologist. For another, Jake isn’t actually human. Jake is a shape-shifting pile of goo, one discovered by his parents late one night and brought up as a human in Cedar Creek View, Arizona. As Jake enters middle school with his ever changing body, odd things start happening around town. Sinkholes open up everywhere, people behave strangely, and Jake is the only person in town who can hear a slight, constant hum. With the help of new pal Agnes Oakes, Jake sets off to discover the source of all these oddities, hoping to find some answers. Jake and Agnes make for compelling protagonists, fully shaded with character, drive, and an engaging relationship. The author structures the plot adeptly, spinning organically from each point of conflict to create a brisk and propulsive read. Nothing is too drawn out, nor are readers ever ahead of Jake and Agnes when it comes to discovering the strange source of Cedar Creek View’s abnormalities. The result is an exciting and intriguing twist on science-fiction tropes often overcooked by lesser hands. Jake’s parents are both of Dutch and Indonesian heritage, and when in human form, Jake presumably resembles them; Agnes is White.
A standout SF adventure. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-297060-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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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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