An expansion of the classic story of the pied piper, this tells of young Penelope, left behind when the piper returns for the children of Hamelin after saving the town from rats. On her 11th birthday, she must enter the world of dreams, accompanied by an eclectic assortment of companions—a talking cat, a jump-roping dragon, a blind harpist—and eventually face the piper himself in a battle of power, greed, and music. Narrated by a 101-year-old Penelope, the story bounces between recollections of the adventure, ruminations on her life, and meeting another Penelope, who is approaching her 11th birthday. By trying to incorporate too many subplots, Richardson fails to explain some of the more central points of the main story. He also introduces and dismisses concepts and props with no consistency. Penelope brings a jump rope with her, but it is rarely mentioned until she has use for it. The only way for Penelope to resist the piper’s enchanted music is to not hear it; she suddenly becomes deaf on her 11th birthday, an occurrence left unexplained. Nor does the reader ever find out why she conveniently regains her hearing upon entering the dreamland. Contrived and disjointed, this is an original interpretation that lacks development. Likely to attract lovers of fairy-tales, but it will disappoint. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55037-629-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
A misfit seventh grader’s half-serious conviction that he’s an alien proves well-founded in this wild, slime-and-monster-filled romp from Mackel (A Season Of Comebacks, 1997). The tales Mike spins to a rapt audience of younger neighbors, about hideous reptilian invaders called Jongs, come home to roost when, after a horribly embarrassing computer prank, he constructs a powerful transmitter out of household electronics and beams a plea for help into the night sky. Suddenly, he’s besieged by nonhuman “rescuers,” from a sluglike Bom, eager to open a raft of personal injury suits on Mike’s behalf, to Barnabus, an entity-rights worker from (where else?) Sirius. Thinking better of his original impulse, Mike fends them off until, to his dismay and elation, an actual Jong swoops down, intending to add him and any other convenient beings to its personal zoo. Mike contrives to defeat the Jong and release its menagerie, setting the stage for an unforgettable Halloween parade through town. In the end, despite proof that his stories are actually suppressed memories, Mike elects to stay on Earth with family and friends. Fans of such escapades as Gene De Weese’s Black Suits from Outer Space (1989), Jonathan Etra and Stephanie Spinner’s Aliens For Breakfast (1988) and Mel Gilden’s Pumpkins of Time (1994) will welcome this with open arms, tentacles, and pseudopods. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-380-97681-1
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Swinburne sets out to teach young children about how shadows are created, describing night as a shadow on the earth, and giving children tangible reasons for why shadows vary in size, shape, and location. The latter half of the book invites readers to guess the origins of the shadows in vivid full-color photographs; subsequent pages provide the answers to the mysteries. A foreword contains information regarding the scientific reasons for shadows, which can be explained to small children, but it is the array of photographs that truly invites youngsters to take a closer look and analyze the world around them with an eye for the details. (Picture book/nonfiction. 3-5).
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56397-724-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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