by Dave Butler ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2016
Reminiscent of both Pinocchio and The Great Mouse Detective, this novel is tailor-made for young readers who love adventure...
Charlie Pondicherry, a Punjabi-English boy whose life revolves around his father’s clock shop, experiences the world entirely through books and stories…but that is about to change.
When his brilliant inventor father is kidnapped by a group of sinister men, all they leave behind is a mysterious note signed by the Anti-Human League. Aided by a motley crew of helpmates that includes a troll, an aristocratic pixie, and two chimney sweeps, Charlie races to save his father and foil a plot against Queen Victoria during her Diamond Jubilee. Along the way, Charlie learns that life is far more complicated than the fairy tales he read could have prepared him for. In this first novel of a projected series for children, Butler crafts a multilayered network of societies within and beneath London and a racially diverse cast of characters, none of whom are entirely what they seem. Through the group’s exploits in the city, the author makes astute social commentary about the xenophobic attitudes of both 19th-century English society and, by extension, our own. Though the fast-paced action is dizzying at times, the novel’s central lesson that kindness is integral to the definition of humanity is solid.
Reminiscent of both Pinocchio and The Great Mouse Detective, this novel is tailor-made for young readers who love adventure narratives and steampunk fiction. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-51295-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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by Dave Butler
by Elinor Teele ; illustrated by Ben Whitehouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2016
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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by Elinor Teele
by Alan Gratz ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2017
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
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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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by Alan Gratz ; illustrated by Judit Tondora
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by Alan Gratz ; illustrated by Brent Schoonover
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by Alan Gratz
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