This entertaining mystery will delight readers, especially Enola Holmes fans.
In this YA graphic-novel sequel to a 2020 Netflix film, a bright, resourceful amateur sleuth scours London for her abducted brother.
Enola Holmes has happily gained her independence from her brother Mycroft as well as boarding school. One quiet night, she crawls into Mycroft’s lodging house room to retrieve a book her beloved mother left for her. Shockingly, Enola witnesses strangers breaking in and kidnapping Mycroft. Even if she’s not on the best of terms with him, he’s still her brother, whom she vows to rescue. All she has to go on is that Alarm, an anarchist group, seized Mycroft for information he knows or may learn. Adults are no help—not her mother, who’s in hiding, or her famous brother, Sherlock, at 221B Baker St. Luckily, she has allies, from a street-smart urchin to young Lord Tewkesbury. The kidnappers may be no match for Enola, who has the brains to crack coded messages, the skills to hold her own in fights, and the willingness to search and slink through muck to find her sibling. She even uncovers someone’s diabolical plan—something potentially more devastating than an abduction. George—adapting a story by Nancy Springer, who wrote the original literary series that the film Enola Holmes is based on—crafts a riveting mystery. Enola can charm details out of anyone but also excels at stealthily following people and piecing together clues. Her tendency to steer clear of the upper class is sometimes comical. Enola dons a dress to disguise herself as a “flighty, harmless girl.” Getting her clothes muddy doesn’t faze her, which is a great display of her doggedness in solving crimes. Sposito and Angiolini’s artwork captures the likenesses of actors from the film (for example, Millie Bobby Brown). But the setting is even more impressively rendered—London’s beautiful streets, alleys, and buildings.
This entertaining mystery will delight readers, especially Enola Holmes fans.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68116-088-7
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Legendary Comics YA
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions.
A teenage girl refuses a medical procedure to remove her heart and her emotions.
June lives in a future in which a reclusive Scientist has pioneered a procedure to remove hearts, thus eliminating all “sadness, anxiety, and anger.” The downside is that it numbs pleasurable feelings, too. Most people around June have had the procedure done; for young people, in part because doing so helps them become more focused and successful. Before long, June is the only one among her peers who still has her heart. When her parents decide it’s time for her to have the procedure so she can become more focused in school, June hatches a plan to pretend to go through with it. She also investigates a way to restore her beloved sister’s heart, joining forces with Max, a classmate who’s also researching the Scientist because he has started to feel again despite having had his heart removed. The pair’s journey is somewhat rushed and improbable, as is the resolution they achieve. However, the story’s message feels relevant and relatable to teens, and the artwork effectively sets the scene, with bursts of color popping throughout an otherwise black-and-white landscape, reflecting the monochromatic, heartless reality of June’s world. There are no ethnic or cultural markers in the text; June has paper-white skin and dark hair, and Max has dark skin and curly black hair.
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions. (Graphic speculative fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780063116214
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even so, this remains Macbeth, arguably the Bard of Avon’s most durable and multilayered tragedy, and overall, this enhanced...
A pairing of the text of the Scottish Play with a filmed performance, designed with the Shakespeare novice in mind.
The left side of the screen of this enhanced e-book contains a full version of Macbeth, while the right side includes a performance of the dialogue shown (approximately 20 lines’ worth per page). This granular focus allows newcomers to experience the nuances of the play, which is rich in irony, hidden intentions and sudden shifts in emotional temperature. The set and costuming are deliberately simple: The background is white, and Macbeth’s “armor” is a leather jacket. But nobody’s dumbing down their performances. Francesca Faridany is particularly good as a tightly coiled Lady Macbeth; Raphael Nash-Thompson gives his roles as the drunken porter and a witch a garrulousness that carries an entertainingly sinister edge. The presentation is not without its hiccups. Matching the video on the right with the text on the left means routinely cutting off dramatic moments; at one point, users have to swipe to see and read the second half of a scene’s closing couplet—presumably an easy fix. A “tap to translate” button on each page puts the text into plain English, but the pop-up text covers up Shakespeare’s original, denying any attempts at comparison; moreover, the translation mainly redefines more obscure words, suggesting that smaller pop-ups for individual terms might be more meaningful.
Even so, this remains Macbeth, arguably the Bard of Avon’s most durable and multilayered tragedy, and overall, this enhanced e-book makes the play appealing and graspable to students . (Enhanced e-book. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: The New Book Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
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