An appealing early entry for the pandemic fiction list: light in tone but grounded in serious incidents and themes.
The Covid-19 lockdown brings changes to nearly every part of Cymbeline Igloo’s life and London neighborhood.
Minor triumphs like scoring the last bottle of ketchup from the grocery’s half-empty shelves notwithstanding, most of those changes are for the worse—Cym’s prospective stepsisters and stepdad are stranded in New Zealand; suddenly he’s distance schooling and can’t even meet his friends just to kick a ball around; and in a disastrous fit of housecleaning, his mum has thrown out his priceless signed soccer jersey. Worst of all, though, is the news that octogenarian school lunch lady Mrs. Stebbings been taken to the ICU. Cym is a lad of deep feelings and sharp sensations, traits that both lighten the load (describing the taste of Mrs. Stebbings’ sticky toffee pudding: “like a thousand very small angels climbing into your mouth and setting off a million golden explosions on your tongue”) and prime readers for the heartfelt and emotionally climactic get-well video he goes on to orchestrate. But along with yet another near-death experience for the resilient protagonist of Boy Underwater (2022), Baron tucks in a subplot involving newly arrived refugees from Syria and Eritrea on the way to an upbeat, if not tragedy-free, ending. The refugees and some established characters add diversity to the largely White-presenting cast.
An appealing early entry for the pandemic fiction list: light in tone but grounded in serious incidents and themes. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-00-849965-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper360
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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