Maybe the real treasure is the friends they make along the way.
An 8-year-old’s summer gets puzzling when she’s named in her neighbor’s will.
Marly, whose best friend recently moved out of town, didn’t even know nice Mr. Summerling had even died, and she certainly doesn’t expect to be called for the reading of his will. She had liked the old man, who wandered around town with a metal detector collecting junk, but “he was next-door-neighbor nice, not give-you-something-when-I-die nice.” At the will reading, Marly meets her classmates Isla and Sai—and the three of them receive the strangest bequest. Mr. Summerling has left the three of them a treasure, which they can have if they solve a series of puzzles. The three kids barely know one another, but they gamely work together on the clues, each of which is depicted as if a facsimile in Budgen’s illustrations. (Each has one component a reader might be able to solve and another only the characters can decipher.) The trio’s friendship builds slowly, but they solve well together, and they’re friendly kids. Marly, who wears an eye patch for her amblyopia, is startled to learn that Isla wore one herself when she was younger. Both girls are White; Sai is of Indian descent. Both a fun, readable introduction to the process of cracking anagrams and pigpen ciphers and a friendship-oriented chapter book.
Maybe the real treasure is the friends they make along the way. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-09483-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Eeney meeney miney moe, catch this series before it goes! (Adventure. 7-9)
Two kids get up close and personal with some great works of art in this first in a new series.
Tiger Brooks is used to his little sister’s fantastical stories. So when the top-hatted orange pig she describes turns out to be not only real, but a next-door neighbor, Tiger enlists the help of his kooky new friend, Luna, to investigate. It turns out the pig works for the reclusive painter Viola Dots. Years ago a magical picture frame swallowed up her only son, and she’s searched for him in artworks ever since. When Tiger’s tinkering starts the magic up again, he and Luna are sucked into a reproduction of Henri Rousseau’s Surprised! or Tiger in a Tropical Storm, hungry predator and all. After meeting and failing to rescue Viola’s son in this adventure, the series is set up for the intrepid pair to infiltrate other classic paintings in the future. Backmatter provides information on the real Rousseau and his life. Oliver keeps the plot itself snappy and peppy. While there are few surprises, there’s also an impressive lack of lag time. This is helped in no small part by Kallis’ art, which goes from pen-and-ink drawings to full-blown color images once the kids cross over into the painting. Tiger is a white boy, and Luna is a dark-haired Latina.
Eeney meeney miney moe, catch this series before it goes! (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-448-48087-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This uninspired offering fails to compete well with other fantasies for young readers.
Exploring the wide world, pixies get into a bundle of troubles in this outing for readers already successfully into chapter books.
In this first of a series previously published in the UK, Titch and Mitch are pixie brothers, Titch the eldest by a year and a bit the braver of the pair. They pack up a little food and head off on a series of adventures that take them away from the safe haven of Pixie Valley and out into the human world where they are kidnapped by a schoolboy, then escape on a boat that crashes on an island. There they are befriended by a series of talking animals and rescue a fairy caught in a shrub. She provides them with a magical flying bicycle that they use to visit her, provide some dental services to a mouse-sized dragon and rescue a very smart turkey. Numerous detailed black-and-white sketches accompany these brief episodes and nicely break up text-heavy pages. Character development is nearly nonexistent, and while the brief adventures provide a mild amount of excitement, their superficiality sharply limits the potential impact. Magical elements seem flat and unimaginative. There is no conclusion, merely an abrupt end, where the next tale will presumably begin.
This uninspired offering fails to compete well with other fantasies for young readers. (Fantasy. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9567449-5-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Inside Pocket
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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