An atmospheric, creepy ghost story best read at night.
Gabe Ashe deals with friendship drama while a supernatural mystery closes in on him.
After a fire destroys his home, Gabe and his family move into his grandmother’s mansion in a small Massachusetts town. Gabe quickly befriends his neighbor, Seth Hopper, and the two play a dark fantasy game in the woods between their houses. Wraithen (Seth’s character) and Meatpie (Gabe) are Robber Princes of allied kingdoms, endlessly pursuing a baby-eating, “mutated humanoid-beast” called the Hunter in lush fantasy interludes. When not playing Prince Meatpie, Gabe desperately avoids his social label from his old school—dorkface. As the other kids extend invitations to Gabe under the condition that Seth not be included, he fears Seth’s obsession with the game has designated Seth the school dork. Gabe’s resulting internal conflict about friendship, realistically executed, is ably characterized through action and decisions. Seth, possessive of Gabe’s friendship, is openly hostile toward the other boys verbally and with immature pranks. But some of those pranks might not be Seth’s responsibility—a mysterious figure terrorizes Gabe’s house and follows kids from school. The strange happenings fit the modus operandi of Seth’s monster-foe, the Hunter. Gabe must solve the increasingly intensifying mystery before someone gets hurt—or worse. While he occasionally gives too much away, Poblocki (The Ghost of Graylock, 2012, etc.) creates danger by not pulling punches.
An atmospheric, creepy ghost story best read at night. (Horror. 10-15)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-40270-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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