Like the increasingly quarrelsome McDonalds, readers will be feeling travel fatigue long before the author’s concluding...
Teen brainiacs Coke and Pepsi McDonald’s cross-country jaunt runs out of gas on its third leg, despite continued silly predicaments and threats of sudden death.
Giving up even a pretense of plausibility, Gutman introduces a new nemesis, masked impersonator Evil Elvis. He joins the bad guys collected in previous episodes for prepared ambushes as the twins and their clueless parents explore a string of tourist destinations—real ones, with photos and Google Maps directions provided. Opening with a teaser for a predicament that doesn’t happen for over 200 pages and isn’t the climax, the author shepherds the McDonald RV from July 4th fireworks on the National Mall to similarly spectacular but more destructive ones at Graceland. They stop along the way at places like the National Jousting Hall of Fame (Mount Solon, Va.), South Carolina’s cheesy, Mexican-themed South of the Border tourist trap, and, inevitably, the Coca-Cola and Pepsi museums (Atlanta and New Bern, N.C., respectively). Imbedded in near-constant infodumps about these and many more roadside attractions that are mentioned but skipped, the various coded messages, captures, rescues and narrow escapes become predictable and repetitive.
Like the increasingly quarrelsome McDonalds, readers will be feeling travel fatigue long before the author’s concluding teaser for Book 4. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-182770-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. The fictional plotters—based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells—are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume.
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35902-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
The Baudelaire children—Violet, 14, Klaus, 12, and baby Sunny—are exceedingly ill-fated; Snicket extracts both humor and horror from their situation, as he gleefully puts them through one terrible ordeal after another. After receiving the news that their parents died in a fire, the three hapless orphans are delivered into the care of Count Olaf, who “is either a third cousin four times removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed.” The villainous Count Olaf is morally depraved and generally mean, and only takes in the downtrodden yet valiant children so that he can figure out a way to separate them from their considerable inheritance. The youngsters are able to escape his clutches at the end, but since this is the first installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, there will be more ghastly doings. Written with old-fashioned flair, this fast-paced book is not for the squeamish: the Baudelaire children are truly sympathetic characters who encounter a multitude of distressing situations. Those who enjoy a little poison in their porridge will find it wicked good fun. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-440766-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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