The quest’s ultimate goal remains enigmatic, but it continues to move along smartly enough.
A series of elaborately concealed clues send student Explorers Kit, Vander and M.K. to a historically deadly area of the Caribbean on the second leg of their map-based quest.
Enrolled in the Academy for the Exploratory Sciences, Kit bases his Final Exam Expedition proposal on a map left by his father in a hidden room in a nearby cave. To his dismay, the proposal is co-opted by sociopathic government official Leo Nackley and transformed into a search for what may be one of this future world’s last oil deposits. But there is more than oil waiting to be discovered below “King Triton’s Lair”—as Kit and allies discover amid shipwreck, pirate attacks, clandestine meetings with the mysterious Explorer with the Clockwork Hand and close encounters with exotic creatures ranging from amphibious killer eels to telepathic mechanical sea turtles. Kit comes away with yet another map that points the way forward; those readers willing to tolerate a tale overendowed with coincidence and supporting cast will find this middle volume a quickly paced and entertainingly twisty adventure. Considering the importance of maps to the story as well as much talk of impending war with the Indorustan Empire in the Simerian Territories, a large-scale map would have been a plus.
The quest’s ultimate goal remains enigmatic, but it continues to move along smartly enough. (maps) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-940450-20-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: McSweeney's McMullens
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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