Message-driven but well stocked with chills and chuckles.
A museum heist and a mouthy talking hat put Jorge and sus amigos, including the cryptid one, on the trail to a fabled treasure in this third series entry.
Legend has it that a witch left three cursed artifacts behind as clues to the location of her stolen riches. When mysterious thieves take two, and the third (a sombrero) winds up on Jorge’s head, it’s time for him and his fanged, nacho-loving chupacabra buddy, Carter, to enlist the help of human friends. Ernie and Liza once again join up for a round of serious sleuthing. As it turns out, the sombrero—which has a startling habit of bursting into screams, when it’s not making rude comments about the size of Jorge’s cabeza—knows more about the treasure than it’s telling. For one, the most valuable thing isn’t the glittering trove they seek but the young investigators’ friendships, which are tested but ultimately prove true. As in earlier episodes, the mood turns occasionally serious (such as when the tweens see Ernie’s dad arrested as a suspect in the robbery). But the tale plays mostly as a Chicano-flavored comedy related in jaunty prose interspersed with pictures that add punchlines (and even major incidents) in a mix of single and sequential panels. Notwithstanding a cave-in, a corrosive subterranean lake, and other thrillingly dangerous hazards, none of the characters, not even the burglars, wind up seriously harmed. Final art not seen.
Message-driven but well stocked with chills and chuckles. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593466032
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
The young folk and (of course) the animals are engagingly wrought in this tale with a strong ecological message.
An orphan loner’s small town faces a hard future after it unwittingly disrupts a natural cycle.
Willodeen is lucky that elderly retired thespians Mae and Birdie took her in after the wildfire that killed her parents and brother, not only because they’re a loving couple, but because they let her roam the woods in search of increasingly rare screechers—creatures so vile-tempered and stinky that the village elders of Perchance have put a bounty on them. The elders have other worries, though: The migratory hummingbears that have long nested in the area, drawing tourists to the lucrative annual Autumn Faire, have likewise nearly vanished. Could there be a connection? If there is, Willodeen is just the person to find it—but who would believe her? Applegate’s characters speak in pronouncements about life and nature that sometimes seem to address readers more than other characters, but the winsome illustrations lighten the thematic load. Screechers appear much like comically fierce warthogs and hummingbears, as small teddies with wings. Applegate traces a burgeoning friendship between her traumatized protagonist and Connor, a young artist who turns found materials into small animals so realistic that one actually comes to life. In the end, the townsfolk do listen and pitch in to make amends. Red-haired, gray-eyed Willodeen is cued as White; Connor has brown skin, and other human characters read as White by default.
The young folk and (of course) the animals are engagingly wrought in this tale with a strong ecological message. (Eco-fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-14740-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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