Genetically engineered chicken eggs provide the narrative motor for this, the fifth, entry in the “Hamlet Chronicles,” as Miss Earth’s fifth-grade class lurches into spring. The eggs in question, stolen by an activist group from a lab outside of Boston, arrive in town on the same day as Thaddeus “Thud” Tweed, a student who challenges even the saintly Miss Earth’s sense of equilibrium. “I’ve tried every kind of schooling for Thaddeus except prison,” his mother tells Miss Earth, “and I’d try that if he were old enough to qualify.” Thud rapidly upsets the delicate balance of power between the Copycats and the Tattletales, founding the Three Rotten Eggs with Salim Bannerjee and Lois Kennedy III, disaffected former members of the established clubs, when they discover three mysterious eggs during Hamlet’s annual Spring Egg Hunt. Tongue stuffed firmly in cheek, Maguire (Four Stupid Cupids, 2000, etc.) deftly weaves together the strands of his story, from the hapless Professor Einfinger’s odyssey through small-town Vermont to recover the eggs, to the hatching of the extraordinary chicks (christened “Flameburpers A, B, and C”), to a benefit concert given by the legendary Petunia Whiner (“Baby Needs Burping”), and on to the slow emergence of Thud’s better self as well as Salim’s and Lois’s explorations of the nature of friendship. The tone throughout is characteristically deadpan, the humor thoroughly sophisticated; after five installments one might think the formula would wear thin, but, the title notwithstanding, this offering maintains a quirky freshness that fans and new readers alike will welcome. (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: March 18, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-09655-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A snappy mystery that’s full of heart.
A group of bright friends tackles the puzzle of their lives.
Elmwood, New Hampshire, 11-year-old Gina Sparks is small in stature but big on reporting ongoing dramas for the local newspaper with support from her journalist mom. When an unbelievable scoop comes her way, Gina must rely on her tightknit crew of sixth grade best friends whose initials happen to spell GEEK, a label they choose to proudly reclaim. She and science-minded prankster Elena Hernández, theater kid Edgar Feingarten, and driven math genius Kevin Robinson decide to get to the bottom of things when they learn that the Van Houten Toy & Game Company heir made elaborate plans to leave everything to the town of Elmwood before her death—but only if a member of the community could solve an intricate multistep puzzle. Gina hopes that deciphering the clues and finding the missing fortune will be just the thing to revitalize the down-on-its-luck town and bring the Elmwood Tribune back into the black, saving her mom’s job and Gina’s passion project. The GEEKs work together, using their individual talents and deductive reasoning skills to unravel the mystery. Infused with media literacy pointers, such as the difference between fact and opinion and reminders to avoid bias when reporting, the story encourages readers to think critically. Gina and Edgar read as White; Elena is cued as Latinx, and Kevin is implied Black.
A snappy mystery that’s full of heart. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-37793-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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