An aquatic tale provides a sensitive environmental message, beautiful illustrations, and a relatable heroine.
A young girl discovers the importance of ocean conservation and her connection to all life during a magical adventure under the sea.
In her idyllic home near the ocean, a girl named Umijoo devours, “as quick as blinking,” the fish dinner that her father has prepared for her, prompting him to remind her that “food is more than just a dish. / There’s time and life and sacrifice / behind each bite of rice and fish.” In this lovely, large-format, rhyming picture book for ages 9 and up by noted marine conservation activist Trenor (Sustainable Sushi, 2009), Umijoo’s father gives her a magic stone that enables her to go on an undersea journey. Before returning to shore, she will learn to appreciate the diversity of life the ocean offers and to understand how people affect it, as individual creatures speak, inviting empathy for their plight due to inhumane practices, overfishing, and pollution. In the author’s rhythmic tale, the book’s message about the need to respect and protect the health of the oceans and to understand humans’ connection to them and all life is delivered with age-appropriate clarity and graceful imagery. As Umijoo sinks deeper and deeper beneath the ocean surface, she encounters a vivid display of life in a coral reef—tiny fish “like shining seeds” and “soft rosy pink” shrimp—a school of fish who resemble “gleaming shards of shattered glass,” an octopus who poses a soulful riddle, and, in the dark abyss near the ocean floor, a monstrous but melancholy angler fish with bioluminescent appeal and “two tremendous rows of teeth that gleamed like racks of sharpened knives.” The text is stunningly realized in pop surrealist Koopman’s dreamlike paintings of ocean denizens, land flora and fauna, and Umijoo herself. Well-researched and interpreted through the debut illustrator’s unique artistic prism, these paintings (full-bleed, with many in double-page spreads) are a feast for the eyes, alive with lavish details and richly saturated colors.
An aquatic tale provides a sensitive environmental message, beautiful illustrations, and a relatable heroine.Pub Date: March 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73286-050-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Shark & Siren Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair.
Fifth graders get into a hairy situation.
After an unnamed narrator’s full-page warning, readers dive right into a Wolver Hollow classroom. Mr. Noffler recounts the town legend about how, every Oct. 19, residents don fake mustaches and lock their doors. As the story goes, the late Bockius Beauregard was vaporized in an “unfortunate black powder incident,” but, somehow, his “magnificent mustache” survived to haunt the town. Once a year, the spectral ’stache searches for an exposed upper lip to rest upon. Is it real or superstition? Students Parker and Lucas—sole members of the Midnight Owl Detective Agency—decide to take the case and solve the mustache mystery. When they find that the book of legends they need for their research has been checked out from the library, they recruit the borrower: goth classmate Samantha von Oppelstein. Will the three of them be enough to take on the mustache and resolve its ghostly, unfinished business? Whether through ridiculous plot points or over-the-top descriptions, the comedy keeps coming in this first title in McGee’s new Night Frights series. A generous font and spacing make this quick-paced, 13-chapter story appealing to newly confident readers. Skaffa’s grayscale cartoon spot (and occasional full-page) illustrations help set the tone and accentuate the action. Though neither race or skin color is described in the text, images show Lucas and Samantha as light-skinned and Parker as dark-skinned.
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair. (maps) (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8089-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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