Delightful, inviting storytelling that will effectively immerse readers in the world of field trials.
Pontacoloni (The Adventures of Firstyr the Younger, 2008) offers a fable about the rise of an underdog in hunting dog competitions.
One summer in the 1950s, Tom Quinn travels to North Dakota to train with Duke Arness, a man well-versed in the sport of canine field trials, which involve pointer dogs locating wild game. Duke’s son, Buck, and his friend Charlie often give Tom a hard time—but he holds his ground and learns all he can from Duke. Tom goes on to become a field trial champion himself until a fateful accident leaves him with a broken hip; he then stops competing but continues as a dog trainer. Decades later, 16-year-old Mike Storey becomes acquainted with Tom and soon takes an interest in the sport. The only problem is that Mike’s dog, Rooster, isn’t a pointer—he’s a funny-looking Spinone pup, labeled by others as “that ‘orange mongrel dog.’ ” Tom also doubts Rooster’s potential as a field-trialer, but once he sees that the dog has a knack for it, he takes Mike under his wing to help them become champions. The story comes full circle when the two eventually compete against Tom’s childhood foes, Buck and Charlie, and their menacing dog, Red Eyes. What makes this novel such an engaging read is Pontacoloni’s ability to transport readers into the story with lucid details, a mix of realistic and fanciful narration, and a pervading tone of reminiscence, as if the author is telling a captivating tale around the campfire. Readers may find it slightly difficult to keep track of all the characters at the beginning, but things become clearer as Pontacoloni fully develops the different players. The plot will be most engaging to those who are already familiar with field trials, but others will find that they quickly make sense of the sport as the story goes along.
Delightful, inviting storytelling that will effectively immerse readers in the world of field trials.Pub Date: June 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4835-6774-7
Page Count: 148
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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