A graphic novel with plenty of gross-out appeal, featuring space travel, giant maggots, and carnivorous grade-schoolers. Suspecting foul play at the new burger place in town, vegetarian sleuth Clementine uncovers Chef Jeff's intergalactic plot to turn "Forked Beasts" (humans) into burgers to tempt the voracious but finicky appetite of his master, Gluttor. The quick-thinking Clem heroically rescues her burger-loving nemesis from Chef Jeff's menu and also devises a scheme to win the chef's freedom from Gluttor's culinary tyranny. This comic-strip look-alike has plenty to recommend it to older children, who will relish the gruesome black-and-white images of hacked and cooked maggots, the astounding number of synonyms used to allude to Gluttor's bulk, and the potential for violence: Gluttor promises, "I'll tear off your head, peel off your face and fry it like a pancake," if Chef Jeff's recipe doesn't satisfy. Whether parents and educators will be able to stomach it is a different matter. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-395-91315-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
The author of Making Animal Babies (p. 556) and other nature titles takes the reader to the rain forest of Costa Rica and describes the plants and animals living there. The text, printed over a solid color panel, is limited to a single column on the edge of each painting. Though long for reading aloud, the descriptions are lively and detailed. For example, “Unlike most other birds, bellbirds and quetzals have big mouths, which allow them to swallow wild avocados whole.” Or, “Squeezing a moss-covered branch is like squeezing a soaked sponge; icy water trickles down your arm.” The dark, lush, richly detailed paintings, which comprise most of each layout, capture the mood of the rain forest, though sometimes it is hard to locate the dozens of plants and animals in each panel, some with labels, but often without. The author occasionally provides scientific names and at other times uses common names. Readers may struggle to find Norantea costaricensis or the Tayra in other sources. Creatures are not drawn to scale so a golden toad in the foreground appears larger than a person in the background. Important details are lost in the gutter, when the painting spans the double page. The author concludes with places to write for more information, a list of Web sites, further reading, a map of the region, and a brief glossary. While the author does not provide enough information on the rain forest for school reports, he captures the flavor of this rich and alien environment. (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: July 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-985-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
Like Sam with those hot dogs, readers eager to snap up any dino-story will make quick work of this tongue-in-cheek romp.
The appearance of a live T. Rex near a fossil dig kicks off a wild round of dino-antics in this series kickoff from an Eisner Award–winning comics writer.
Hardly has young Mike donned his high-tech, solar-powered hoodie—a present from his paleontologist dad—than he’s running into Shannon, a mysterious girl wielding awesome futuristic devices, and running in panic from a hungry T. Rex he decides, in a less frantic moment, to name Sam. Secretive about her origins, Shannon enlists Mike, whom she dubs “Dino-Mike” (she herself goes by the less punchy moniker “Triceratops Shannon”), to help her steal a hot dog truck and lure the monster into a force field cage so that it can be sent back to the Cretaceous. Though ultimately successful, the mission is not only complicated by continuing interference from rascally dinosaur collector Jurassic Jeff, but capped, in a closing stunner, with unmistakable evidence that “Sam” was actually “Samantha.” Franco strews his lickety-split escapade with cartoons featuring wide-eyed figures viewed, often, from dramatic angles, leaves loose ends aplenty for sequels, and tacks on a dino-glossary and a set of T. Rex facts at the end.
Like Sam with those hot dogs, readers eager to snap up any dino-story will make quick work of this tongue-in-cheek romp. (Science fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4342-9631-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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