For all that the end feels a bit like a flattened Yorkshire pudding, getting there is a thrill a minute.
A bored lad experiences adventures that range from wonderful to horrific in a steampunk-y alternative London.
Feeling underappreciated while home from boarding school, nearly-11-year-old Jack Foster eagerly rejects his upper-middle-class existence in late Victorian London, following the mysterious Mr. Lorcan Havelock through a magical doorway into the parallel world of Londinium. Initially, Jack is enthralled by his freedom and his new environment, a “land of brass and steel and clockwork, of steam and airships….” One of his first acquaintances is Dr. Snailwater, an inventor of mechanical human beings. Jack is disappointed that the doctor wants to return Jack to London, and he’s surprised that Snailwater disapproves of Sir Lorcan. The fast-paced, escalating suspense reaches an unexpectedly dark pinnacle when Lorcan’s disembodied voice convinces Jack that recent public hangings will continue until Jack agrees to assume the role of son to the Lady, ruler of Londinium. And that’s just the beginning. It’s packed with so much action, much of it violent, that readers may well feel that the conclusion is nothing but anticlimactic. The novel’s strength lies in worldbuilding and vivid descriptions, and Anglophiles will likely enjoy the historical-cultural references.
For all that the end feels a bit like a flattened Yorkshire pudding, getting there is a thrill a minute. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9877-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds.
Pranksters George and Harold face the deadliest challenge of their checkered careers: a supersmart, superstrong gym teacher.
With the avowed aim of enticing an audience of “grouchy old people” to the Waistband Warrior’s latest exploit, Pilkey promises “references to health care, gardening, Bob Evans restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives.” He delivers, too. But lest fans of the Hanes-clad hero fret, he also stirs in plenty of fart jokes, brain-melting puns, and Flip-O-Rama throwdowns. After a meteorite transforms Mr. Meaner into a mad genius (evil, of course, because “as everyone knows, most gym teachers are inherently evil”) and he concocts a brown gas that turns children into blindly obedient homework machines, George and Harold travel into the future to enlist aid from their presumably immune adult selves. Temporarily leaving mates and children (of diverse sexes, both) behind, Old George and Old Harold come to the rescue. But Meaner has a robot suit (of course he has a robot suit), and he not only beats down the oldsters, but is only fazed for a moment when Capt. Underpants himself comes to deliver a kick to the crotch. Fortunately, gym teachers, “like toddlers,” will put anything in their mouths—so an ingestion of soda pop and Mentos at last spells doom, or more accurately: “CHeffGoal-D’BLOOOM!”
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-50492-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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