Known for witty, entertaining fantasies, Ibbotson (Dial-a-Ghost, p. 744, etc.) dispenses with magic wands and mythical creatures here and dishes up her best work yet—a topnotch 1910 adventure featuring exotic, vividly evoked locales, a caricature-rich cast filled with likeable (as well as thoroughly despicable) characters, and enough plot to fill an entire trilogy. Two years after the death of her parents, young Maia departs London’s Mayfair Academy For Young Ladies for Manaus, a remote town on the Amazon where the Carters, distant relatives, have at last been located. With her travels a new governess, Miss Arabella Minton, outwardly a cross between Mary Poppins and Atilla the Hun, inwardly a canny, resourceful, big-hearted sort with sadness in her past. Together, Maia and Miss Minton confront the Carters, as dysfunctional a crew as ever was, and also become involved in rescuing two more young orphans—one a penniless actor, the other a scion of a wealthy British aristocrat’s black-sheep son—from unpleasant fates. While skillfully weaving together numerous plot lines and suspense-intensifying complications—Maia and Miss Minton, for instance, love but do not come to understand or trust each other until nearly the end—the author gives her four central characters the inner stuff to cope with an array of challenging situations, and rewards them all with bright, diverse futures. And, of course, their prejudiced, mean-spirited adversaries get what they deserve in full measure. With a rain forest steeped in beauty and mystery for backdrop, this romp will transport not just Ibbotson’s fans, but legions of Potterites and their ilk as well. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46739-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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