Theo Tan and the fox spirit

Jesse Q. Sutanto

Book - 2022

A twelve-year-old Chinese American boy must learn to embrace his heritage and accept his beloved older brother's spirit companion--a mystical fox named Kai--to solve the mystery of Jamie's death.

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Subjects
Genres
Detective and mystery fiction
Novels
Fantasy fiction
Paranormal fiction
Published
New York : Feiwel and Friends 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Jesse Q. Sutanto (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
308 pages ; 22 cm
Audience
Ages 8-12.
Grades 4-6.
ISBN
9781250794284
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Sutanto's latest middle-grade fantasy is, at its core, about a boy finding his power by connecting to his heritage. Chinese American Theo Tan lives with his family in San Francisco's Chinatown. All he wants is to be a normal American boy, but when his older brother dies under mysterious circumstances, Theo must partner with his brother's mischievous fox spirit, named Kai, and set out on a quest to find answers. Sutanto blends Chinese culture and history to build a world of dragons, demons, spell casting, and code breaking. The story is told via two different points of view, jumping between Theo's and Kai's perspectives. Kai is a witty and snarky character, often describing the magical world through footnotes and commentary, reminiscent of Bartimaeus in Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand (2003). This is a natural choice for kids who like Rick Riordan's brand of mythology-fueled fantasy adventures, and it will be an especially good read-alike for Laurence Yep's classic Tiger's Apprentice series, another action-packed fantasy with a distinct Asian perspective that pairs ancient Chinese mythology with modern San Francisco.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Twelve-year-old Theo Tan and his two-tailed shape-shifting fox spirit companion Kai must work together to solve the mystery of his brother's death in Sutanto's (The New Girl) Chinese-mythology-rich middle grade debut. In a futuristic San Francisco in which expensive cirth magic, which is bought and stockpiled in pendants, dominates daily life, Theo "hate that I'm a Chinese American kid who lives in Chinatown." He isn't like his hardworking, proudly Chinese American older brother Jamie, who's a cultural outreach intern at Reapling Corp., the U.S.'s largest cirth supplier. After Jamie dies in a car accident, Theo inherits his brother's acerbic spirit companion, Kai, with whom Theo's never gotten along. When they uncover Jamie's coded notebook, which implicates Reapling in his death, the pair reluctantly work together to solve the mystery by infiltrating the company via its prestigious cultural outreach summer program. In Theo and Kai's alternating perspectives, Sutanto weaves the duo's shared grief and path to healing with Theo's journey toward embracing his Chinese heritage in this rewarding fantasy adventure. Ages 8--12. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. (May)

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 3--7--Sutanto makes her middle grade debut with a Chinese and Indian mythology--inspired epic examining identity politics, bullying, capitalist greed, and unblurring the lines of integrity. "I hate that I'm a Chinese American kid who lives in Chinatown," Theo readily admits. But he'll have to change his attitude to get into the prestigious "Know Your Roots" summer program--because that's the only way he'll figure out how his older brother Jamie died. Sutanto's chapters alternate between Theo and Kai, Jamie's beloved spirit fox who's compelled to become Theo's begrudgingly cranky sidekick. Just as Theo and Kai are mismatched, so, too, are Caleb Yen as Theo and Kimberley Wong as Kai. Individual performances entertain, but listeners will quickly notice the jarring lack of continuity of characterizations between chapters. VERDICT Fans of B.B. Alston's missing-older-sibling "Supernatural Investigations" series will appreciate getting to know Theo--albeit likely better on the page.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

Theo Tan is more into gaming than studying his Chinese heritage and learning to access his qi -- that's his older brother Jamie's thing. But after Jamie pulls Theo aside one morning for a mystifying conversation about computer game quests, and then dies in a car accident, leaving Theo his fox spirit companion, Kai, and a coded notebook full of clues, Theo determines to find out what his brother was trying to tell him. His search leads him to the "Know Your Roots" summer youth program conducted by Jamie's former employer, Reapling Corporation, purveyor of the "cirth" that everyone uses to power their magic, but Theo can't pass the stringent entry exam. Clever Kai helps him cheat to get in, but doing so tilts Kai away from spirit and toward demon, and now the two guards of the underworld, Ox Head and Horse Face, are eager to drag her down to Diyu. Chinese cosmology (and to a lesser extent, Indian cosmology, since Know Your Roots features both) star in this Riordan-esque adventure set in an alternate San Francisco, where magic is prevalent but so is prejudice (Theo refuses to speak Mandarin after being teased in kindergarten; his reconnection with his heritage is one of the story's strengths). Readers dependent on their own technological devices might take a lesson from the book's message about finding resources within -- or perhaps they'll just enjoy this engrossing mystery set among ancient Chinese spirit grudges and modern-day corporate malfeasance. Anita L. Burkam July/August 2022 p.136(c) Copyright 2022. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.