A smart kid’s goofball adventure.
Magic works? Can it save Cal’s family’s farm?
Twelve-year-old Cal and his best friend, Drew, are momentarily distracted from Cal’s family’s problems—caused in no small part by Cal when he accidentally started a fire in the harvester—when they learn that classmate Modesty can practice magic. She’s found a binder of magic spells, but they work only for a minute and only at certain times of the day, and most of the spells are 800-word tongue twisters that can’t be said in under one minute. In puzzling this out, they end up discovering that in a parallel world called Congroo, magic is imperiled because its dragons are dying. With the help of Preface Arrowshot, a young, green-skinned Congruent librarian, the kids discover that the local entrepreneur who’s got his eyes on Cal’s family’s farm may be at the root of the problem. Stopping him could save Congroo and the dragons, and it also might save the farm. Unrelated to the similarly titled What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World (2013), this is a good choice for fans of The Phantom Tollbooth and The Westing Game and Chris Grabenstein’s Mr. Lemoncello books. While there’s plenty of slapstick, the physical comedy is surrounded by wordplay, a good balance of sophisticated and silly. Subtle jabs at climate change deniers and unqualified wannabe world leaders add layers to Clark’s newest. Cal presents white; Drew and Modesty both have brown skin.
A smart kid’s goofball adventure. (Fantasy. 8-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-49231-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Contagiously goofy and fun.
Area 51 gets its first new resident in 5 years—and a new mystery.
When her grandma moves into a kid-free retirement home, 12-year-old orphan Priya “Sky” Patel-Baum and Spike, her pet hedgehog, relocate to Area 51 to live with Sky’s eccentric Uncle Anish. At 51, humans and Break Throughs (government-speak for aliens) live together off-grid in harmony. Unfortunately, several Zdstrammars (one of many Break Through species) mysteriously disappear, disrupting the base’s harmony and contributing to feelings of suspicion. Despite being deputy head of the Federal Bureau of Alien Investigations, Uncle Anish becomes a prime suspect. Can Sky and Elvis, her alien classmate, prove Uncle Anish’s innocence and find the missing Zdstrammars before it’s too late? YA author Buxbaum’s middle-grade debut is a rip-roaring series opener complete with over-the-top characters and jokes galore. Naidu’s black-and-white cartoon illustrations extend the comedy with ongoing commentary that smartly interacts with the prose. The cast of Break Through species—like Audiotooters, Galzorian, and Sanitizoria—have hilariously creative on-the-nose names with illustrations to match. Sky is coded biracial, with a White dad and Indian mom. Aliens appear in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors; Elvis shape-shifts but looks like a brown-skinned boy to Sky. Though the main mystery is neatly wrapped up, the cliffhanger ending promises more laughs.
Contagiously goofy and fun. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-42946-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
