by Bobbi Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2013
A breakneck tale that never quite catches its breath.
Never heard of Annie Christmas or Mike Fink?
Miller calls upon her storytelling voice to weave anecdotes from folklore about these two larger-than-life characters into a novel, casting a river pirate’s daughter at the helm of this eddy of an adventure. When the great earthquake of 1811 causes the Mississippi to run backward, River Fillian’s father is killed in a fire, leaving her alone with just his carved spyglass. Annie Christmas takes her under her wing, along with her nine sons (all with “C” names: Cully, Cam, Coby, etc.), and together they set off to find Blackbeard’s treasure, buried by Jean Lafitte. They pick up historical and legendary figures along the way, including Mike Fink, and River rescues a young tiger, which becomes her protective sidekick. A passel of scoundrels pursues them through the swamps and bayous around New Orleans. This strong-girl-heroine tale is abundant in descriptions of river life, but the colloquial language tends to impede the narrative flow, and although it’s an adventure, it’s almost too packed with action for the pages to contain it. The cover depicts River and her tiger in a lighthearted moment, suggesting a “prettified story,” which River assures readers it’s not. “There you are and there you ain’t.…[T]hat’s life on the raggedy edge.”
A breakneck tale that never quite catches its breath. (author’s note, bibliography) (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2752-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2013
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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