A repackaging, by and large, but rich in features and close enough to the originals to preserve their attractions.
A text-centered but gamer-friendly e-version of one of Nancy Drew’s more popular cases.
Reworked from the most recent revision of Nancy Drew #5: The Secret of Shadow Ranch (1931, 1965, 1993) and its 2004 video-game version, this iteration sticks to the same general plot but runs through multiple tracks. The updated, present-tense narrative (“Y’all ain’t gonna be textin, tweeterin and titterin while the rest of us’re singin, are ya?”) is liberally strewn with links to “collectible” icons, color spot art with touch-activated sound effects and side games (horse races, “hidden object” tableaus and word scrambles, for instance). Readers can also decode messages, identify suspects, affect events at frequent intervals by making choices (though sometimes there is but one “choice” offered) and even listen to abbreviated versions of cowboy songs. Children fond of skipping ahead will be frustrated, as in the first run-through the eight chapters can only be read in order, and some choices lead to dead ends requiring a return to the chapter’s beginning. For all the video game–style illustrations and the requirement that readers sign in as “players,” there is very little animation—but the mix of cliffhangers and interactive distractions should keep both budding sleuths and video addicts absorbed.
A repackaging, by and large, but rich in features and close enough to the originals to preserve their attractions. (iPad mystery/game. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Her Interactive
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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