"Noel glub C blub all. . . I glub new. . . ." These are the last words that Mrs. Carillon hears from her sinking husband before she herself is hit on the head by their capsizing boat and the two of them are taken to the hospital. They are also the first words she has heard from him since they were married at five and seven to cement a soup factory partnership and the young husband was sent away to school, but the devoted Mrs. Carillon spends the next 21 years assiduously searching for Leon (or Noel, as he calls himself) and trying to solve the glub-blubs. She glimpses him once in Bloomingdale's, but he's on the down escalator and she's on the up, and her attempts to get to him only result in her being sent to the Women's House of Detention for inciting to riot. It would be impossible to summarize subsequent events, which progress from the ridiculous to the preposterous, and equally unsporting to disclose the puzzle's solution (which hinges on a horse named Christmas Bells**), but with the help of childhood friend Augie Kunkel (a stammering crossword puzzle-maker whose avocation is nouns) and her adopted twins Tony and Tina, all ends happily at Thanksgiving dinner with a double wedding, a cellmates' reunion, and the promise of fame and fortune all round. The story is as current as the shaved and saffron-robed protesters who help "Free Mrs. Carillon" (or "Free the Orphans' Mother") from the Pest Hole, the pictures (made of words and asterisks) are part of the werbal fun, and the whole's a flamboyantly nimble farce. **a clue
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1971
ISBN: 0525423699
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For readers thirsting for a fresh survival story.
Brothers undertake a desperate desert journey during a long-term power outage.
While their preparation-obsessed father’s out of state on a business trip, leaving 13-year-old John and 11-year-old Stew under the loose supervision of their neighbors, a complete blackout hits. Days pass and it doesn’t let up; what little news they hear implies a massive scale. In the opening sequence, readers meet the brothers as they lower themselves to collecting toilet water to drink, as they were recently robbed of their father’s entire (extensive) supply stash. They encounter a sister-brother duo, Cleverly and Will, and—even though John knows that they barely have the supplies to make the three-day, 96-mile titular journey to salvation—the brothers decide allowing the other kids to join is what is right to do. Along the journey, they face general hardships of desert hiking with insufficient water as well as human threats. Thankfully, these latter are given conflicting motives, which increases tension. Another conflict source is Stew’s defeatist behavior, which is at odds with John’s descriptions of him—and, in a twist, is revealed to have a very good cause. The story focuses on the themes of the kids’ journey, and while the ending provides hope, readers looking for answers to the blackout will be disappointed. The characters default to white, though there’s disability representation in the form of characters with Type I diabetes.
For readers thirsting for a fresh survival story. (Adventure. 8-13)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-19230-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Starscape/Tom Doherty
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Where the execution falters the premise carries the book.
Dungeons & Dragons meets Clue in this capital-Q Quirky stand-alone murder mystery set in the Hero’s Guide series world.
When Baron Vargus Angbar’s ancestral treasure goes missing, butler Gribbinsnood Flornt must hire a bounty hunter to capture the famous wizard the baron believes to be guilty. Lured by a bard’s song, Flornt hires the Lilac—before learning that she’s 14 and in cahoots with the bard, Dulcinetta. The wizard hunt is an extended setup to get the Lilac and Netta to the baron’s castle, where they are invited by the baroness to dinner and the real mystery can begin. The narrator intrudes to occasionally remind readers what they’re really here for—a murder mystery; someone’s going to end up dead. The Lilac, sealed in the castle by a magically shrinking bubble with a roster of wacky suspects, must figure out whodunit. There’s the baron and his equally unpleasant noble dinner guest, the baroness who seems a bit too familiar with dead bodies, the baron’s wizard-in-training son, the baron’s prim and proper daughter, said daughter’s coarse yet highly competent etiquette master, a surly goth gnome cook, the butler, and an ogre guard. Every last one of them—including the Lilac and Netta—harbors secrets and isn’t what they seem. The Lilac must untangle the (sometimes excessive and tedious) red herrings (frequently delivered in long, expository backstory passages) to deduce the truth. Characters read white.
Where the execution falters the premise carries the book. (Fantasy mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780062341945
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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