The hero is really the entire family in this somewhat labored but cockle-warming series kickoff.
Eleven-year-old Cal resorts to extreme measures to rope his reluctant family into taking a chance to win a shopping spree in the local megastore.
Strong family ties and social-class contrasts lie at the center of this sitcom-style farce. Eyes firmly fixed on a video-game system that is well beyond his struggling family’s reach, Cal Talaska responds to the contest announcement with a series of stratagems that turn his close but initially indifferent clan into a motivated team. The Talaskas need all the moxie they can summon. Their main rivals as the contest goes through multiple tricky elimination rounds turn out to be the Wylots—arrogant, upper-crust owners of the factory where Mr. Talaska is employed as an accountant—and they’re not at all shy about playing mind games, uttering thinly veiled threats, or out-and-out cheating. Doyle leans hard on the moral divide by thoroughly demonizing the Wylots while casting the Talaskas as a caring, mutually supportive family that laughs as heartily as it pulls together. He does rather overplay the feel-good ending, but their win is well-deserved. In quickly sketched ink-and-wash illustrations, Jack portrays them as biracial (Mr. Talaska is the darker parent), though their diverse skin tones on the full-color cover even out in the interior images.
The hero is really the entire family in this somewhat labored but cockle-warming series kickoff. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-52177-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. The fictional plotters—based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells—are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume.
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35902-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
The Baudelaire children—Violet, 14, Klaus, 12, and baby Sunny—are exceedingly ill-fated; Snicket extracts both humor and horror from their situation, as he gleefully puts them through one terrible ordeal after another. After receiving the news that their parents died in a fire, the three hapless orphans are delivered into the care of Count Olaf, who “is either a third cousin four times removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed.” The villainous Count Olaf is morally depraved and generally mean, and only takes in the downtrodden yet valiant children so that he can figure out a way to separate them from their considerable inheritance. The youngsters are able to escape his clutches at the end, but since this is the first installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, there will be more ghastly doings. Written with old-fashioned flair, this fast-paced book is not for the squeamish: the Baudelaire children are truly sympathetic characters who encounter a multitude of distressing situations. Those who enjoy a little poison in their porridge will find it wicked good fun. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-440766-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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