Plenty of vivid, painterly action scenes carry the day.
Claudia Miravista, a lonely sixth-grader who loves creating and viewing artwork, becomes involved in an unusual task: rescuing a boy named Pim from a mysterious land behind the world’s art canvases.
At the local art museum, Claudia’s classmates laugh at her when she tells them that she saw a blue-eyed boy staring out from a painting of three Dutch gentlemen. However, the observant art curator realizes that Claudia has a special gift, and he ensures that Claudia meets his wise, ancient grandmother. Granny Custos gives Claudia a bit of esoteric information and a quest, helping Claudia travel into Pim’s world. From the start, dangers lurk at every turn, as Claudia becomes physically entangled with famous paintings such as Rubens’ Saint George and the Dragon and Ernst’s Fireside Angel. How powerful is the evil Nee Gezicht, and is Pim trustworthy? There are moments of extreme silliness, as when the Mona Lisa reveals an unexpected “loogie-hocking surfer chick” persona. The cinematic, cliffhanger adventure concludes in a way that only the most naïve readers—and Claudia—will not expect; character development throughout is given less attention than action and art. Readers will find themselves searching out art-history textbooks or the Internet for visuals to accompany the descriptions of art and art movements. Numerous footnotes from a fictional Dr. Burkhardt’s art-history book are both informative and funny.
Plenty of vivid, painterly action scenes carry the day. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-02970-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Ideas abound, but when the focus shifts from Thomas' determination to take the measure of the house (literally and...
Dies Drear? Ohio abolitionist, keeper of a key station on the Underground Railroad, bearer of a hypercharged name that is not even noted as odd. Which is odd: everything else has an elaborate explanation.
Unlike Zeely, Miss Hamilton's haunting first, this creates mystery only to reveal sleight-of-hand, creates a character who's larger than life only to reveal his double. Thirteen-year-old Thomas Small is fascinated, and afraid, of the huge, uncharted house his father, a specialist in Negro Civil War history, has purposefully rented. A strange pair of children, tiny Pesty and husky Mac Darrow, seem to tease him; old bearded Pluto, long-time caretaker and local legend, seems bent on scaring the Smalls away. But how can a lame old man run fast enough to catch Thomas from behind? what do the triangles affixed to their doors signify? who spread a sticky paste of foodstuffs over the kitchen? Pluto, accosted, disappears. . . into a cavern that was Dies Drear's treasure house of decorative art, his solace for the sequestered slaves. But Pluto is not, despite his nickname, the devil; neither is he alone; his actor-son has returned to help him stave off the greedy Darrows and the Smalls, if they should also be hostile to the house, the treasure, the tradition. Pluto as keeper of the flame would be more convincing without his, and his son's, histrionics, and without Pesty as a prodigy cherubim. There are some sharp observations of, and on, the Negro church historically and presently, and an aborted ideological debate regarding use of the Negro heritage.
Ideas abound, but when the focus shifts from Thomas' determination to take the measure of the house (literally and figuratively), the story becomes a charade. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 1968
ISBN: 1416914056
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1968
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A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains.
Myla and Peter step into the path of a gang when they unite forces to find Peter’s runaway brother, Randall.
As they follow the graffiti tags that Randall has been painting in honor of the boys’ deceased father, they uncover a sinister history involving stolen diamonds, disappearances, and deaths. It started long ago when the boys’ grandmother, a diamond-cutter, partnered with the head of the gang. She was rumored to have hidden his diamonds before her suspicious death, leaving clues to their whereabouts. Now everyone is searching, including Randall. The duo’s collaboration is initially an unwilling one fraught with misunderstandings. Even after Peter and Myla bond over being the only people of color in an otherwise white school (Myla is Indian-American; mixed-race Peter is Indian, African-American, and white), Peter can’t believe the gang is after Myla. But Myla possesses a necklace that holds a clue. Alternating first-person chapters allow peeks into how Myla, Peter, and Randall unravel the story and decipher clues. Savvy readers will put the pieces together, too, although false leads and red herrings are cleverly interwoven. The action stumbles at times, but it takes place against the rich backdrops of gritty New York City and history-laden Dobbs Ferry and is made all the more colorful by references to graffiti art and parkour.
A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains. (Mystery. 10-12)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2296-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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