A rangy introduction to the parts of the brain and their functions that skips or dives, your choice.
A deep-dish serving of brain matter, but surprisingly digestible for all that.
There is no skirting around the fact that the brain is a complex instrument and that its parts are identified by words of an equally complex order: amygdala, sensory homunculus, thalamus. But Warp manages to glean the salient points while connecting the parts of the brain like so many axons. Ned is a trainee neuron who travels about the brain and the central nervous system while trying to solve a problem for his host, Sophie, who has stepped on a rock and is now in danger of having to stop doing cartwheels. This has Ned in a lather, as he loves cartwheeling. The story is rather silly and immature for the material being covered, but it does add light relief—as does the playful, Hanna-Barbera–like artwork—when confronting action potentials and hippocampi, dendrites and synapses. The app is designed to work deeply into the brain, one layer leading to the next, though readers can also skim—thus allowing for a broad range of ages and capabilities—and there is frequent opportunity to revisit brain parts and activities for refreshers, either via hot words in the text or a handy toolbar at the top of the screen. Both the story and the curricular narrators keep a light, unthreatening tone.
A rangy introduction to the parts of the brain and their functions that skips or dives, your choice. (works on iPad 2 and above) (iPad informational app. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Kizoom
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
A young man who unwittingly helps a punk steal an elderly couple’s television in the first story sets the somewhat uneasy tone for this collection. While glimpses of Soto’s characteristic humor and charm appear in later stories, many of these tales focus on less-than-comfortable events and experiences. There’s a girl whose tattooed and pierced babysitter dyes her younger brother’s hair orange and green, a fact sure to enrage their mom when she eventually finds out; a child who is achingly aware of the enmity of anti-war protesters and simultaneously proud of her immigrant parents’ efforts to improve their lives; and a sad young boy whose painfully polite parents have frozen him out of the family without apparently meaning to do so. Each situation is distinct, clearly drawn and immediate. Soto presents his characters with sometimes insurmountable challenges, but he limns their lives with such vivid descriptions and insights that readers will be left wondering how things work out—and wishing for the best. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206181-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
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
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