Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. 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. 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.
Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. Alabama Moon is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery 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.
As the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there.
But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn’t know or understand he’s become property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. When Moon’s father dies, Moon follows his father’s last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. They keep to themselves, their only contact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store.
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