Lacks the urgency and coherence of the bears' first series, but fans will demand this follow-up.
The wildly popular writing team (writing collectively as Hunter) sends its team of bears out for another episodic adventure, but the object of this quest is less than clear.
Brown bear Toklo, black bear Lusa and white bear Kallik have accomplished the long trek to Star Island and destroyed the threats to its fragile ecosystem, but at the cost of the life of their friend, the shape-shifting Ujurak, reunited with his mother in the stars. Now accompanied by the white bear Yakone, they turn their paws homeward, unsure of both route and destination. After enduring quarrels and hunger, nearly fatal accidents and harrowing encounters with humans, the foursome stumbles across the abandoned Nanulak. Will caring for this strange bear cub fill the empty place in Toklo's heart? Or does Nanaluk conceal dangerous secrets of his own? The authors do a fine job recapping previous events, making this an accessible entry point for new readers. Unfortunately, the characters seem to have lost much of their accumulated growth and nuance as well: Toklo is angry and guilt-ridden, Lusa is wise but weak, Kallik is the nurturing peacemaker and Yakone exists mainly to be big and strong and have things explained to him. Scheming Nanaluk is a caricature of a villain, while the dreamlike visions of the ascended Ujurak only underscore the shift in theme from environmental awareness to a plea for interspecies tolerance.
Lacks the urgency and coherence of the bears' first series, but fans will demand this follow-up. (Animal fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-199634-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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