A novel that will have readers reflecting on their own experiences of grief, longing, regret, survival, and overcoming.
In the companion to A Crack in the Sea (2017), Bouwman offers stories of loss, hope, perseverance, and the repercussions of severed platonic and familial bonds.
In the book’s present day of 1949 in the “second world,” 12-year-old Putnam, son of the king of Raftworld, is impatient with his father’s refusal to take action to correct the mysterious salinization of their water, so he leaves home to do it himself. Meanwhile, Islander Artie, also 12, flees an abusive home that’s become even worse since her mother’s death. They do not intend to journey together, but a twist of fate finds them both stealing the same boat. In a separate storyline, a century earlier, 14-year-old Rayel, daughter of the then-king of Raftworld, runs away to escape an arranged marriage. These flights lead to unexpected happenings: Putnam and Artie’s friendship and Rayel’s discovery of magic within herself and unlikely friends. They also bring great trials, from physical privation to the looming feelings that nefarious presences watch and follow. Though their voyages begin at different times, all three unknowingly take the same route toward the cold southern part of their world and are eventually connected, leading to truths and revelations. Bouwman masterfully infuses old fairy tales and legends into her alternate-universe adventure, meticulously weaving times and storylines into a riveting plot. All three protagonists have brown skin. Shimizu’s energetic black-and-white illustrations add visual drama.
A novel that will have readers reflecting on their own experiences of grief, longing, regret, survival, and overcoming. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-54522-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
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
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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