by Cynthia Reeg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 2017
Poor pacing, jerky plot, uneven content: skip.
Following From the Grave (2016), Frank and the misfits face a plot against them and bully Malcolm struggles with his family secret.
Seventh-grade troll Malcolm McNastee is devastated that his father didn’t actually die a hero and instead was exiled to Exxillium, a place of shame for inferior “misfit” monsters. Malcolm’s father has been newly rescued by Frankenstein monster Frank (a misfit due to his not-so-scary blue skin and fastidious ways) and his sixth-grade friends. Chapters alternate between Frank and Malcolm, with Frank keeping secret his revolutionary activities and worrying about a missing friend, and Malcolm grappling with his father’s status as a hated outcast and also doing evil Principal Snaggle’s bidding. Snaggle has a plan to send the Odd Monsters Out class on a field trip to the Shadowlands during a dangerous storm in hopes that none of them will return. Several of the story’s elements—the principal’s plot to kill students, a storyline about aggressive conformity, a dream that Malcolm has about sending the misfits through a human shredder, and even some suicidal ideation—are at odds with cutesy monster-themed names and puns (Moanday, Tooshday, Shocktober, and, leaving the calendar behind, “horrorcane” and “slybrary,” for instance). The vast majority of the tale is buildup, with the titular trip over in a blink, to be quickly followed by setup for the next book.
Poor pacing, jerky plot, uneven content: skip. (Fantasy/horror. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63163-134-4
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
by Kate DiCamillo ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Tenderly resonant and memorable.
Ferris finds herself in the midst of several love stories during the summer before fifth grade.
Emma Phineas Wilkey’s moniker comes from the circumstances of her birth: under the Ferris wheel at the fairground. Her contained world, centered around her family and best friend, is filled with kindness, humor, and singular personalities, while the indeterminate late-20th-century small-town setting feels like a safe place from which to observe heartbreak and loss. Ferris’ architect father and her pragmatic mother, on break from teaching high school math, anchor her home life, along with Pinky, her hilariously ferocious 6-year-old sister, and Charisse, her grandmother, who claims to have seen an unhappy ghost in their big old house. Ferris’ best friend, Billy Jackson, whom she’s loved since kindergarten, hears the music of the world: “The whole world is singing all the time.” Ferris, serious and sensitive, is attuned to the ways that the vocabulary words they learned in Mrs. Mielk’s fourth grade class describe moments in her life. DiCamillo’s gift for conveying an entire person and world in a few brushstrokes of storytelling provides depth and quiet magic to this account of an eventful summer in which a ghost is appeased, an outlaw (Pinky) is somewhat reformed, and an uncle and aunt are reconciled. Ferris experiences two surprising moments of transcendence and becomes aware of the ways love suffuses everything. Characters are cued white.
Tenderly resonant and memorable. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781536231052
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Share your opinion of this book
More by Kate DiCamillo
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Julie Morstad
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Sophie Blackall
by E.B. White illustrated by Garth Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1952
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
Share your opinion of this book
More by E.B. White
BOOK REVIEW
by E.B. White & illustrated by Maggie Kneen
BOOK REVIEW
by E.B. White illustrated by Fred Marcellino
BOOK REVIEW
by E.B. White illustrated by Garth Williams
More About This Book
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.