An adroitly conceived series opener that’s tailored to action fans.
In this middle-grade novel, artificially intelligent teddy bears protect the son of a kidnapped scientist.
Dr. Peter Barnes is being held against his will in a secret lab beneath the Arctic tundra. His kidnappers—referred to as “government agents”—know that he’s mathematically proven the existence of other dimensions besides our own. They want him to create a portal to one of those dimensions, and they’re willing to harm Peter’s 10-year-old son, Timmy, if he doesn’t cooperate. Timmy, whose mother died four years ago, is an excellent student—in large part because his and his father’s frequent moves have kept him from having a social life. Peter often takes work-related trips, leaving Timmy with a nanny. He’s never been gone for a month before, however, and the new nanny, Ms. Gertrude, isn’t too friendly. In captivity, Peter creates a blue-lit portal that releases hundreds of monstrous, shadowy beings, led by an imposing entity named Total Dark, who wants to rule our dimension. Total Dark, who’s also capable of absorbing other objects and using them as weapons, detects that Peter has a son. It sends its minions after Timmy in order to coerce the doctor into opening an even larger portal so that thousands more shadows may cross over. In response, Peter remotely activates Bear Company—five robotic teddy bears in his house, each programmed with a different specialty to protect Timmy. For his debut novel, Alexander launches a smart, action-oriented middle-grade series that’s designed to keep kids’ attention. His flair for fun description pops up in lines such as “this underground base…makes Area 51 look like a candy shop.” Vocabulary words, such as “rendezvous,” are defined in context and spelled phonetically (“ron-day-voo”) to boost the educational experience. Timmy also refreshingly uses a library—not just the internet—to begin his search for his father. The bears are color-coded and have names such as Bruiser and Sneak, which emphasize their capabilities. Adults may also notice Alexander’s cleverness in naming the humorous medical bear “Patch,” after famous real-life physician Hunter “Patch” Adams.
An adroitly conceived series opener that’s tailored to action fans.Pub Date: July 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9991138-1-3
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Bickering Owls Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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