Climate activism fuels a fizzy mix of amazing discoveries and thrilling escapes.
A Boston seventh grader who’s been suspended from school stumbles into a secret experiment in ecological rescue going on right under his nose in this headlong STEM-centric mystery.
Spinning her tale around a bold scientific theory, Burack pitches 12-year-old Dominic Bean into a dizzying round of revelations—not least being his discovery of an advanced genetics lab hidden on the New Hampshire farm of his supposedly low-tech, back-to-the-land aunt and uncle. Feeling abandoned by his scientist parents, who have gone off to Nunavut on an expedition “to keep 1.5 trillion metric tons of permafrost-trapped carbon from being released into the atmosphere and destroying the world,” Dom is struggling with anger issues serious enough to get him kicked out of school. But he’s a smart kid, and as the author cranks up the pacing, he rises to an entire series of challenges ranging from saving his tanking grades to saving his little sister when she gets caught in a deadly bog. He even helps to rescue a certain shaggy, scene-stealing prehistoric wonder baby (see title) from a set of greedy grown-ups. The cast, which presents white in the narrative and in Bron’s occasional, well-placed illustrations, includes a significant supporting child character who is deaf in one ear and uses a hearing aid.
Climate activism fuels a fizzy mix of amazing discoveries and thrilling escapes. (map, author’s note, further reading, glossary) (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781779461858
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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