Steer Cthulhu-craving kiddies to Charles Gilman’s fearful and funny Lovecraft Middle School.
Dr. Fell, foul fiend or friend to children?
The last house on Hardscrabble Street, empty and old, has always been a playground for the local children, so when a “sold” sign appears in the yard, no one’s pleased. Jerry and Gail Bloom and Gail’s friend Nancy Pinkblossom meet their new neighbor, the wizened Dr. Fell, and bemoan the loss of their play space. A few days later, a fantastical playground of pirate ships and castle towers appears in Dr. Fell’s yard. Before long, children start getting hurt there, but every injury on Dr. Fell’s playground heals quickly under his care. Gail, Jerry, and Nancy grow suspicious, especially when their parents start acting strangely. Then Gail returns from a visit to Dr. Fell acting brainwashed. Her friend and brother cure her, but as Dr. Fell’s control of the town grows, the trio realizes something terribly sinister’s afoot. Can they head it off? Actor and storyteller Neilsen’s debut tries too hard from the start. Dr. Fell speaks in purple prose and then translates himself nearly every time he converses, a characterization tic that grows old quickly. Repetition of humorless gags and forced quirkiness in nomenclature cannot be saved by a shallow attempt at Lovecraft-ian horror far too late in the tale. Terry’s black-and-white illustrations add atmosphere and depict an evidently all-white cast.
Steer Cthulhu-craving kiddies to Charles Gilman’s fearful and funny Lovecraft Middle School. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93578-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A bewildering mishmash of unintegrated elements, long as well as incoherent.
A child in search of something special to bring to class finds it in a jungle temple—then loses it to a rival.
Discovering most of a torn map in her backpack, Rosie dons her grandpa’s Indiana Jones–style hat, navigates her way to a cabinet in his study, and with her dog, Rolland, goes through it to a wilderness adventure leading to a giant “monkey king” with a glowing golden ball. Up pops sneering classmate Freddy Jones with the rest of the map. He takes the ball from Rosie, leaving her with only the hat for an anticlimactic show and tell the next day. To Freddy, though, the ball is just a rock, so he tosses it aside after school. Rosie picks it up…and that night it begins to glow again. And that’s it. Berg makes the story even less meaningful, if that were possible, by leaving readers to wonder how Rosie and Freddy came by the map—or even what was on Freddy’s portion, since it’s only shown unreadably folded up—as well as how exactly everyone gets back home or why the stolen artifact (which seems to be just a MacGuffin with no actual agency or significance) should glow for one thief but not the other. The art is somewhat better put together than the strung-out plot, though characters’ faces are sometimes distorted.
A bewildering mishmash of unintegrated elements, long as well as incoherent. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77147-058-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
An appealing idea for a chapter book but undistinguished in execution.
The Divine triplets, Lily, Daisy, and Violet, are alike in some ways and different in others, but they agree about their troublesome new puppy.
This chapter book introduces the three girls: Lily, who loves to read and dares to write and recite a poem; Daisy, who loves baseball and plays even better after she gets glasses; and drama queen Violet, who makes up for her science failures with a project about the ways the three of them take after different members of their family. And then there's Grandpa Dash and Grandma Rose. The girls’ habit of jumping to conclusions leads them to assume that their dad's father and mother’s mother are getting married, but the big announcement turns out to be the gift of a new dog. The third-person narrative is dialogue-heavy, with amusing, age-appropriate wordplay: Violet calls a science fair project about electricity a “shocker” and uses words like “ridonculous” and “matchy-matchy.” There's no sense of place and no clear indication of the girls' age; this is an episodic story of people and relationships. In the end, these characters don’t come alive, and readers may find it difficult to distinguish them—just as sometimes happens to triplets in real life. Grayscale illustrations help (final art not seen).
An appealing idea for a chapter book but undistinguished in execution. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: May 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3289-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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