In theory, this adventure based in quantum physics could have gone on for another 100 chapters. In theory, it could have kept going forever.
The structure of the book is simple: Albie, an English lad, visits a parallel world, and then he visits another one. He does this by climbing inside a tiny Schrödinger box (the kind that held Schrödinger’s cat). It’s powered by something Albie calls Quantum Banana Theory. Scientists might quibble about the details. It really operates on what could be called the “Roger Rabbit principle”: it works because it’s funny. But like most comedies, the novel is based around a tragedy. Albie’s particle-physicist mother died two weeks before the start of the book, and he’s looking for a world where he can talk to her again. Many of Albie’s adventures are amusing or suspenseful, but each world is a little sadder than the last, because Albie’s mother is never there. Every world feels distinct and surprising, but Edge’s writing does have one odd quirk: a lack of physical description. Readers will need to use deductive reasoning to guess the races of most characters: Albie has green eyes and dark-brown hair, implying that he is white, and his best friend is a British-Asian boy named Kiran Ahmed. Albie’s reunion with his mother, when it comes, is utterly heartbreaking, and readers may be grateful they had so many chapters to prepare for it.
The book is actually quite short, but it turns out to be exactly the perfect length. (Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1357-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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