Ghost story, detective adventure and good fun—but readers are advised to begin this entertaining series with volume one.
In this episode, apprentice detective Wilma Tenderfoot and her beagle, Pickle, meet a phony phantom and a genuine ghost, and Wilma moves a step further in her quest to solve the mysteries of her own origin.
Book three lives up to the promise of earlier series titles (The Case of the Frozen Hearts, 2011, etc.) with an appropriately convoluted plot, exaggerated characterizations, plenty of playful language and a ridiculous romance. The diminutive but dastardly Barbu D’Anvers reappears, bent on collecting a gambling debt, marrying swooning Belinda Blackheart and bumping off her parents so that he can inherit the family’s crumbling estate. Another pair of conspirators constructs an elaborate scheme to find treasure hidden at Blackheart Hoo and scare the owners out of hunting for it themselves. Kennedy reminds readers about the main characters and isolated setting on Cooper’s Island through an elaborate side exploration of the divided community’s curious history and traditions including the annual Brackle Day celebration. Villain D’Anvers never speaks plainly: He hisses, pants, screams and cackles. Wilma’s dog, Pickle, is embarrassingly outfitted in one outlandish getup after another; Inspector Lemone can’t stop thinking about food; and Detective Goodman solemnly smokes his rosemary pipe, before he identifies the perpetrators and reveals all. No real fatalities occur.
Ghost story, detective adventure and good fun—but readers are advised to begin this entertaining series with volume one. (Humorous mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: June 28, 2012
ISBN: 9789-0-8037-3542-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid.
Black sixth-grader Jake Liston can only play one song on the piano. He can’t read music very well, and he can’t improvise. So how did Jake get accepted to the Music and Art Academy? He faked it.
Alongside an eclectic group of academy classmates, and with advice from his best friend, Jake tries to fit in at a school where things like garbage sculpting and writing art reviews of bird poop splatter are the norm. All is well until Jake discovers that the end-of-the-semester talent show is only two weeks away, and Jake is short one very important thing…talent. Or is he? It’s up to Jake to either find the talent that lies within or embarrass himself in front of the entire school. Light and humorous, with Knight’s illustrations adding to the fun, Jake’s story will likely appeal to many middle-grade readers, especially those who might otherwise be reluctant to pick up a book. While the artsy antics may be over-the-top at times, this is a story about something that most preteens can relate to: the struggle to find your authentic self. And in a world filled with books about wanting to fit in with the athletically gifted supercliques, this novel unabashedly celebrates the artsy crowd in all of its quirky, creative glory.
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-52351-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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