Following A Dastardly Plot (2018), the plucky heroes seek vindication and victory through a daring quest to discover the South Pole.
Although the government has sworn Molly Pepper, her inventor mother, Cassandra, and her friend Emmett Lee to secrecy regarding the truth of the World Fair—meaning they can’t claim ownership of their heroics—things should be looking up for the Peppers. But when Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell fail to secure the votes to allow women into the Inventors’ Guild, which would secure Cassandra both recognition and financial rewards, the inventor goes into a funk and her daughter schemes to let the truth out. Also scheming is intrepid young investigative reporter Nellie Bly (whose constant disguises and alter egos are a running gag). Thwarted by the government, they launch a desperate gambit with the help of the Mothers of Invention to beat Bell to the South Pole, where he’s pursuing the villainous Rector. The first act’s pacing is a little off, but the characters’ frustrations with their circumstances and oppressions are tangible. As the plot (a string of treacherous betrayals) picks up, so does the humor. While racial descriptors are mainly absent (leaving most characters assumed white), people of color are present in a stop in Barbados, and African American inventor Sarah Goode returns. Furthermore, the oppression experienced by Chinese-born Emmett Lee is openly dealt with. The ending is a minor cliffhanger. A glossary-style afterword separates fact from fiction. Readers new to the series should start with Vol. 1.
Slapstick leavens this back-stabbing adventure. (Historical science-fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-234200-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
Did you like this book?
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
Did you like this book?
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
