Clever, concise, and compelling.
A seventh grade slacker experiences a synaptic growth spurt.
Grabenstein returns with another fact-filled, puzzle-packed, multigenre romp. This new series stars Jake McQuade, a freckled White 12-year-old who’d rather play video games and schmooze than exert himself in the classroom or on the basketball court. Everything changes when Jake accidentally chows down a scientist’s jar of jelly beans imbued with Ingestible Knowledge, sending his IQ sky-high. Accompanied by brainiac buddies Grace Garcia, a Cuban American girl with a secret connection to Riverview Middle School, and Kojo Shelton, a Black science geek and aspiring detective, Jake soon finds himself navigating previously unimaginable scenarios. Sometimes the stakes are local: say, the Riverview Pirates’ Quiz Bowl competitions. Sometimes they’re a bit larger, like working with the Pentagon on military intelligence or cracking an interstate robbery on behalf of the FBI. All the while, malevolent school principal Patricia Malvolio is scheming with her uncle, real estate tycoon Heath Huxley, to bulldoze the school and erect a condominium, a project funded by a pirate treasure. Can Jake and his pals save their school—or is his brain blast bound to burn out? As always, Grabenstein’s cast is more defined by caricature than characterization, and the collective is far stronger than any of its constituent parts. High-paced humor offsets nerdy digressions while light commentary on public education and academic effort lends a veneer of thoughtfulness.
Clever, concise, and compelling. (puzzles) (Humor. 9-13)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-64778-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists.
Princess Grace of Merryland needs rescuing again, forcing two young knights-in-training to face a series of challenges, from hungry cave sharks to a minotaur named Chad.
Actually, Princess Grace is perfectly capable of rescuing herself—again: see Once Upon a Tim (2022)—except that this time, kidnappers have stashed her in a room that’s locked and bolted on the outside…and in the middle of a maze billed, supposedly, as “the most complex and dastardly labyrinth in the world.” So it is that former peasants Tim and his more capable friend Bull—otherwise known as Belinda when she’s not disguised as a boy—plunge into a mess of dark and bewildering tunnels, armed with a ball of twine provided by the surprisingly sapient village idiot Ferkle, to face a series of deadly threats…though the most legendary of all turns out to be an amiable monster with the body of a bull and the head of, well, a dude. Throughout Gibbs’ lighthearted, laugh-out-loud tale, Curtis supplies proper notes of farce or stark terror as appropriate in flurries of line drawings that present most of the humans and the monsters with human features as White, though Belinda appears to present as Black. Along the way, Tim adds educational value to his narrative by flagging and then pausing to define vocabulary-building words like laborious and vexing.
A lighter-than-air blend of knightly exploits and rib-tickling twists. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9928-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An entertaining continuation to a magical series that celebrates diversity with a magical twist.
With Rumpelstiltskin and his band of villains still on the loose, the students and staff of Fairy Tale Reform School are on high alert as they prepare for the next attack.
Classes are devoted to teaching battle techniques and conjuring new weapons, which narrator Gilly finds preferable to learning history or manners. But Maxine, her ogress friend, has had it with all the doom and gloom. The last straw is when the agenda at the Royal Lady-in-Waiting meeting is changed from “How to Plan the Perfect Fairy Garden Party” to designing flying rocks and creating flower darts. While on a class field trip to the village to investigate their future careers, Maxine finds a magic lamp housing a genie named Darlene. Her wish that everyone be happy works a little too well. War preparations are put on hold as the school fills with flowers, laughter, and plans for a musical production. But when Gilly is tapped to fill in for the local chief of the dwarf police, things really take a turn for the worse. The students, including fairies, ogres, and the part-human/part-beast offspring of Beauty and the ex-Beast, focus on friendship and supporting one another in spite of their differences. Humility, forgiveness, and loyalty are also highly regarded in the FTRS community. Human Gilly is white, but there is racial as well as species diversity at FTRS.
An entertaining continuation to a magical series that celebrates diversity with a magical twist. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5167-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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