D’Lacey mixes up a lovely bag of dragons, squirrels and a strangely appropriate adult protagonist. Twenty-year-old David comes to live in Liz and Lucy’s extra room in a house full of ceramic dragons. Liz sculpts them, but what’s the Hrrr coming from her studio and how does she fire them without a kiln? Liz’s young daughter Lucy knows the dragon secrets but isn’t allowed to tell. Lucy latches on to David and pulls him into her search for an injured squirrel in the backyard and the nearby library gardens. She practically forces David to write a book for her about the squirrels she knows. Liz gives David a dragon named Gadzooks that seems to be helping him write somehow. Liz is an appealing mix of secretly magic-loving adult and disciplinarian. Two stories-within-the-story are inexplicably blander than the main narrative. Infused with a gentle sense of wonder. (Fantasy. 7-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-439-67243-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If not as effervescent as Roz’s first outing, it is still a provocatively contemplative one.
Roz, a robot who learned to adapt to life among wild creatures in her first outing, seeks to return to the island she calls home.
Brown’s sequel to The Wild Robot (2016) continues an intriguing premise: What would happen to a robot after challenges in an unexpected environment cause it to evolve in unusual ways? As this book opens, Roz is delivered to a farm where she helps a widower with two young children run a dairy operation that has been in his family for generations. Roz reveals her backstory to the cows, who are supportive of the robot’s determination to return to the island and to her adopted son, the goose Brightbill. The cows, the children, and finally Brightbill himself come to Roz’s aid. The focus on Roz’s escape from human control results in a somewhat solemn and episodic narrative, with an extended journey and chase after Roz leaves the farm. Dr. Molovo, a literal deus ex machina, appears near the end of the story to provide a means of rescue. She is Roz’s designer/creator, and, intrigued by the robot’s adaptation and evolution but cognizant of the threat that those achievements might represent to humans, she assists Roz and Brightbill in their quest. The satisfactory (if inevitable-feeling) conclusion may prompt discussion about individual agency and determination, whether for robots or people.
If not as effervescent as Roz’s first outing, it is still a provocatively contemplative one. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-38204-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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