Miri, as spunky and smart as ever, returns in the final book of the award-winning Princess Academy trilogy.
At the end of her year at the titular academy, Miri is anxious to return to Mount Eskel and have her betrothal to Peder proclaimed. On the day of departure, however, the king requests that she travel to Lesser Alva, a swampy outer territory, to conduct a princess academy for three sisters. He hopes to prevent war by presenting them as potential brides for the king of a neighboring kingdom, who’s possibly bent on invading. Miri finds herself bitten by snakes, wrestling caiman for food, eating rats and teaching the uncivilized sisters how to be bandits before she can teach them how to read. After uncovering a long-buried secret, Miri is fierce in righting wrongs, showing once again that one person can change the world. In a nice, feminist, concluding twist, a prince academy is established to groom a spouse for the new crown princess. Although not a traditional fairy tale, the ending is a happily-ever-after one. Strong female characters and themes of education, negotiation, family and equality are repeated in this conclusion. Hale maintains her high quality of storytelling, with lots of action, plot twists and lyrical writing. The cover is younger in style than and lacks the gravitas of the previous books’ covers.
A laudable conclusion to a popular series. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61963-485-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
12
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In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
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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 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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