  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 03/01/2013 Gr 5–8—In this companion to Goblin Secrets (S & S, 2012), Kaile works hard in her parents' bakery/alehouse in a river city. On Inspection Day at the bakery, she allows a goblin and his troupe to perform in the public room and is given a bone flute. When she plays the instrument, she is separated from her shadow. No shadow, no life, according to her culture, and, despite her protests, there is a funeral for her the next day. Ostracized by family and community, Kaile leaves home, with Shade at her side. The city of Zombay is an odd place filled with Rock Movers, who lose appendages doing their work and replace them with makeshift metal parts, goblins that supposedly steal children and turn them into ghouls, and a host of other strange characters. There is a dark edge to this tale, and death seems very close. The story of redemption is what gives this book its appeal, with the strange characters and places more of a distraction than an asset. Some of the situations are, well, ghoulish; Kaile visits a Reliquary, a repository for bones, many of them human, and discovers that her flute is made of a young girl's femur. At times comic, at times creepy, this unusual tale winds its music around readers' hearts.—Kathy Kirchoefer, Henderson County Public Library, NC - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2013 Music and performance have magical qualities in the river city of Zombay, and when Kaile accepts a gift of a bone flute from a goblin, the tune the instrument plays separates the young girl from her shadow. Kaile’s family, convinced that her missing shadow indicates Kaile has lost her soul, bars her from their house and insists she is dead. In order to reclaim her life, Kaile must track down the restless soul to whom the bone originally belonged, a quest that brings her to the musicmakers who hold the city together with their tunes just before the river’s flooding threatens all of Zombay. Alexander returns to the world that won him the National Book Award with Goblin Secrets (BCCB 4/12), but Kaile’s story has a more whimsical, fairy-tale feel than the steampunk-infused earlier volume, focusing on Zombay’s magic and legends as opposed to automatons. His storytelling remains compelling, and Kaile makes a likable heroine, at times admirably noble and at other times understandably frustrated and defiant. Her adventures are just scary enough to keep readers on edge without giving anyone nightmares, and the climactic battle scene is triumphant with a touch of melancholy as Kaile puts to rest the souls of victims of past river floods. Those readers who were intrigued by Zombay in the first installment will be pleased to find that the city seems to have secrets enough for many more books. KQG - Copyright 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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