In a brave effort to draw martial arts film and game fans, Whitesel chronicles a young farm lad’s involuntary entry into a clan of astonishingly adept warriors. Having botched a chance to make good as a dyer’s apprentice, young Koji runs despairingly into the forest and finds himself held captive in a hidden rebel camp. Slowly, Koji falls under the spell of these seemingly superhuman ninja (they never use that word, but call themselves “grass”), who can dislocate their own joints at will and perform other eye-popping physical feats. Gradually developing into a strong, clever fighter himself, he joins them in a bizarrely convoluted plot to weaken the local daimyo by tricking him into rejecting the firearms recently introduced by European traders. However, the author’s long, slow setup may lose readers attuned to instant and continual action, and her focus on Koji’s emotional landscape and maturation is so close that the rough-hewn plot never acquires much suspense or sense of danger. Still, worth a try with readers of Lensey Namioka’s samurai mysteries, or (changing countries) Da Chen’s Wandering Warrior (2003). (glossary, historical note, two booklists) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 22, 2004
ISBN: 0-618-38139-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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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