Meehl leads Holes fans into familiar territory with this tale of an everyteen whose intention to leave home ASAP is ultimately modified by events. Jake Waters has spent all his life in Patience, an isolated western town that has been dying ever since outlaw trouble in the 19th century resulted in a curse and a misplaced trove of buried treasure. (Sound familiar?) He has little on his mind beyond doing well in the town’s World Series. Of the league’s eight players, Jake is third best behind his rivalrous friends Howie (scion of the local fertilizer processing plant’s owner) and Cricket (daughter of Pakistani parents), and making good on his vow to escape both Patience and the plans of his father, the town plumber, to open a museum of toilets. Matters come to a head (as it were) after the Plunger of Destiny, which had played a key role in the original curse, resurfaces, followed by a tornado that leaves Patience hip deep in its major industrial product, and the arrival of (more déjà vu) a witchy government official determined to find the treasure. Featuring likeably human main characters, a colorful supporting cast, memorably offbeat set pieces and a credible small-town atmosphere, this debut should leave plenty of readers flushed with laughter. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 9, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73299-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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