by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones and illustrated by Adam Stower ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2009
The authors of the Bailey School Kids set their new series in a small town that is unknowingly protected from the magical creatures just adjacent by a spellcast hedge of thorns and magic. The secret job of protecting that hedge falls to six “Keyholders,” paired off one Humdrum (the local term for Muggle) to one magical being. Fifth-grade buddies Penny and Luke, plus despised spoiled-rich-kid classmate Natalie, discover that they’ve been chosen to be the newest set of Keyholders when they meet and bond with, respectively, a snotty unicorn, a distinctly puppylike dragon and a nervous talking rat. That bonding, along with mounting evidence that the evil Queen of Boggarts is weakening the hedge in preparation for an outbreak, carries over into Keyholders #2: The Other Side of Magic (ISBN: 978-0-7653-5983-4). Magical attacks, lively characters from both sides of the hedge and slapstick set pieces compensate for the glacial pace in the early going. Considering the authors’ track record, the pace may never pick up, but the bright humor will attract and keep young pre-Potterites. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7653-5982-7
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Starscape/Tom Doherty
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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by James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein ; illustrated by Anuki López ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2019
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
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by James Patterson & Keir Graff ; illustrated by Alan Brown
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by James Patterson & Ellen Banda-Aaku with Sophia Krevoy
by Tony DiTerlizzi & illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2008
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
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