A fitting finale for a top-notch series.
Evie returns once more to the Dark Sun Side, a terrifying land of nightmarish creatures.
This trilogy closer takes place just weeks after 12-year-old Evie narrowly escaped the Dark Sun Side in 2023’s The Nighthouse Keeper. Evie has been living with her aunt Desdemona, believing her parents’ lives were lost in a house fire—but she discovers they’ve been held captive in the Dark Sun Side by the demented creature called the Clackity. Evie, who’s cued white, strikes a bargain with the Clackity and embarks on a series of quests: Succeed, and she gets her parents back; fail, and she risks losing her own life. Accompanied by the lovable Bird, her tattooed companion who’s nestled into her skin and sends her warnings, Evie bravely uses her resourcefulness and altruism to tackle tasks that take her through places like an otherworldly ocean, desert, and forest. The most captivating of these expeditions takes her to the Winterlands, a place that’s striking and chilling in its beautiful descriptions. It’s only in this world that Cáceres’ otherwise evocatively creepy black-and-white illustrations fail to capture the vivid, haunting beauty described in the text. Senf’s storytelling is riveting and wildly imaginative, and her story is populated with unique, otherworldly creatures and characters. Evie’s death-defying crusade makes for a satisfying, compelling closing to the series.
A fitting finale for a top-notch series. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665934602
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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