An entertaining coming-of-age tale with a serious environmental message.
A young detective takes on the case of her missing parents in this debut middle-grade novel.
Despite her conventional name, 10-year-old Susan Jones is no ordinary kid. As Madame X, she’s a private eye, solving such mysteries as a lost phone or stolen toys. Her parents aren’t routine either; they’re marine biologists, famous for their TV specials, who travel the world hoping to save the oceans. When they disappear, Susan has a new case to solve—which soon becomes wrapped up in another mystery. Susan; her best friend, Johnny Peters; and his 7-year-old brother, Teddy, discover bizarre elfin creatures called Thingamabobs living underground in Susan’s town. They claim to be purely beneficial to humans, but a note has warned Susan that “They have your parents.” A Thingamabob leader promises to help if Susan can find an errant Bob—but all is not as it seems. Following clues, Susan and her friends investigate beneath the town, where they discover that the area’s septic issues are related to Bob activities. The Bobs are trying to take over the entire underground and destroying the ecosystem above. A desperate note from her parents gives Susan her mission: “If you can save the creeks, you can save us.” Susan and her friends undertake a wild and often gross quest in underground sewers and creeks, hoping to save the Joneses and their town before it’s too late. In her novel, Conway tells an exciting story that appeals on several levels: as a mystery, an adventure, and an ecology parable. In addition to the striking plot, the characters are strong; Susan’s voice is a fresh and funny pleasure, as when describing being caught in a maelstrom of chilly sewer water: “It was like being in an evil, cold Jacuzzi.” Susan grows as she appreciates her ability to change the world, and she shows initiative, courage, and good instincts in her detective work. Also compelling are debut illustrator Angelovic’s images, which have a cool retro style that captures the book’s energy and originality.
An entertaining coming-of-age tale with a serious environmental message.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73317-178-6
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Zealot Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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