Skip to main content

Deadly Flowers

Image
By


Deadly Flowers
Sarah L. Thomson
2016, Boyds Mills Press, an Imprint of Highlights, 270 p.

Orphan Kata lives at a training school in ancient Japan—a training school for female ninjas called “Deadly Flowers.” At the school she is one of the best (and the oldest) students still there. She is taught to be stealthy and have a high pain tolerance. When she is finally asked to complete her first mission, Kata is excited. This is what she has always dreamed of. Only, she didn’t realize that it would be to kill a 10-year-old boy. When her mission goes awry (in part due to the fact that it turns out that she does not have thirst for murder), she must take the boy she couldn’t kill and his sister on a journey to escape both the ones who hired her to kill and the mistress of the training school.

However, like all good adventure stories (and this is an adventure because—well, ninjas!) there is more to the adventure than just running away from people trying to kill them. The group also has a magical pearl that controls demons. And other demons want the pearl just as much as the people running after them. This is a great fantasy/historical/adventure mashup of a book. And I love that it is a female protagonist that has to think, act, and save the day. Seriously, this is one great adventure story. Just watch out for all those pesky (and sometimes evil) demons.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Finding Lost

By
Finding Lost By Holly Goldberg Sloan New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Fiction. 208 pages. Middle schooler Cordy, along with her mom and little brother, Geno, are still learning how to adjust to their life after “The Accident,” a tragic boating accident that cost their father’s life. When Cordy is walking home from school one day, she finds a little stray dog who the family nicknames Lost, and as he joins their family, he helps them rediscover all of the beauty that life has to offer. Holly Goldberg Sloane delivers a heart-warming and poignant novel about loss, family, and perseverance. This was a well-written novel that could appeal to a wide range of readers. Any middle schooler will be able to relate to Cordy’s experience of dealing with change, and those who have experienced a similar loss will be sure to find solace in this beautiful story.
Post a Comment
Read more