Never Girls #1: In a Blink (Disney: The Never Girls‪)‬

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 26 NOV. 2012

When Kate, Lainey, Mia, and Mia's annoying younger sister are transported to Never Land's Pixie Hollow, they become the responsibility of a reluctant Tinker Bell until Queen Clarion and her winged crew can figure out how to get the girls home again. This first installment in the Never Girls, a Disney Fairies spinoff series, is by necessity mostly exposition about fairy life; the girls learn, for example, that humans are referred to as "Clumsies," and discover the talents possessed by an array of local fairies. Thorpe seems occupied by diminutiveness and shelter magazine prettiness ("It was the perfect room. Four girl-sized hammocks hung from the tree's branches. The willow's leaves spilled down around them like curtains"), but there's little narrative meat, character depth, or dramatic tension to be found among the oohing and ahhing. Fans of the reimagined Tinker Bell, who is now something of a DIY geek, may wish she had elbowed the other tiresome fairy characters out of the way and claimed center stage. Final art not seen by PW. Simultaneously available: The Space Between. Ages 6 10.