Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

In this contemporary version of The Snow Queen, fifth-grader Hazel embarks on a memorable journey into the Minnesota woods to find her best friend Jack, who vanishes after a shard of glass pierces his eye. Adopted from India as a baby, fantasy maven Hazel has always felt "she was from a different planet." Hazel tries "desperately not to disturb the universe" at Lovelace Elementary, where she doesn't fit in with anyone except Jack, the only person she knows with a real imagination. Together they've grown out of "Wonderland Arctic space-people tea parties" into "superhero baseball"—until the day Hazel pelts Jack with a snowball, glass enters his eye and he disappears with a mysterious woman resembling the Snow Queen. Uncertain if Jack's really changed or something fey's afoot, Hazel enters the woods to find "an entirely different place," populated by creatures from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen. As Hazel discovers she doesn't know the ground rules, the third-person narrator engages readers with asides and inter-textual references from the fairy-tale canon. And like a fairy-tale heroine, Hazel traverses the woods without a breadcrumb trail to save a boy who may not want to be saved in this multi-layered, artfully crafted, transforming testament to the power of friendship. More than just a good story, this will appeal to lovers of Cornelia Funke as well as Andersen. (Fantasy. 8-12)

ALA Booklist (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Hazel, a fifth-grader who lives with her divorced mother, isn't adjusting well to her new school. Worse, her one dependable friendship, with her next-door-neighbor Jack, has become unstable. When glass falls from the sky and into Jack's eye, its source is a mystery, but readers are told that a shard of magic mirror, shattered by a goblin high above the earth, caused the injury. Soon afterward, a white witch lures him to a frozen pond, where he lives while Hazel braves the terrors of the magic woods to rescue him. Mixing realistic and fantastic realms is a chancy endeavor, but Ursu draws readers into lonely Hazel's world and makes her quest a compelling story. Throughout the text are allusions to fairy tales, principally Andersen's "The Snow Queen," as well as classic and contemporary children's books. These allusions will enrich the narrative in proportion to the reader's knowledge of the originals. This fantasy features polished prose, a carefully crafted story, and a hauntingly beautiful dust jacket.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

In Ursus riff on The Snow Queen, Hazel is demoralized when her friend Jack refuses to have anything to do with her, instead playing with his male schoolmates. Then he disappears altogether. But fantasy-reading Hazel knows a fairy tale when she sees one: she heads into the woods and successfully negotiates the duplicitous characters she meets. Ursus prose is pungent, humorous, and vivid.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

In this contemporary version of The Snow Queen, fifth-grader Hazel embarks on a memorable journey into the Minnesota woods to find her best friend Jack, who vanishes after a shard of glass pierces his eye. Adopted from India as a baby, fantasy maven Hazel has always felt "she was from a different planet." Hazel tries "desperately not to disturb the universe" at Lovelace Elementary, where she doesn't fit in with anyone except Jack, the only person she knows with a real imagination. Together they've grown out of "Wonderland Arctic space-people tea parties" into "superhero baseball"—until the day Hazel pelts Jack with a snowball, glass enters his eye and he disappears with a mysterious woman resembling the Snow Queen. Uncertain if Jack's really changed or something fey's afoot, Hazel enters the woods to find "an entirely different place," populated by creatures from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen. As Hazel discovers she doesn't know the ground rules, the third-person narrator engages readers with asides and inter-textual references from the fairy-tale canon. And like a fairy-tale heroine, Hazel traverses the woods without a breadcrumb trail to save a boy who may not want to be saved in this multi-layered, artfully crafted, transforming testament to the power of friendship. More than just a good story, this will appeal to lovers of Cornelia Funke as well as Andersen. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Ursu follows her Cronus Chronicles

School Library Journal (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Gr 9 Up-Created for anthropology, sociology, and capital-"F" film students, this encyclopedia offers analyses of approximately 380 films and the people involved in them, plus about 70 essays on topics from "Animation" and "Feminist Film Criticism" to "Italian Neorealism" and "The Male Gaze." Arranged in separate alphabets for films, people, and subjects, the entries range in length from about one-and-a-half dense pages covering " Gattica " to nearly eight for " Bonnie and Clyde ." Film articles open with overviews and plot summaries, go on to describe critical reactions, then close with cogent discussions of major themes and enduring influences or significance. The biographical entries include discussions of historical figures such as Eadweard Muybridge and Thomas Edison, along with the (relatively) more contemporary likes of Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, and Kathryn Bigelow. Subjects include major genres (porn excluded) and organizations, as well as cultural studies such as "Blackface" and "Women in Film." Only some articles include a photomostly small, black and white, and sometimes murkyand appended filmographies are selective. Still, every entry concludes with a list of further resources and, generally, one or more cross references. Despite a better-than-average set index in each volume, the quirky internal arrangement makes this set unsuitable for quick reference, and as a film resource it is far less comprehensive than guides such as those produced by Leonard Maltin or Roger Ebert. There is plenty of grist here, however, for researchers or general readers seeking a broader understanding of important films, people, and themes.— John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library