Monsters and mayhem—but unfortunately mundane.
Twelve-year-old Bailey Buckleby is a monster hunter, but unlike his father, who sells them for profit, Bailey seeks to understand them.
When he is not in seventh grade or texting his maybe soon-to-be girlfriend, Savannah, Bailey can be found staffing the counter at Buckleby and Son’s Very Strange Souvenirs. In addition to the usual saltwater taffy, snow globes, and tacky T-shirts, the Bucklebys stock fairies, a harpy, hoop snakes, and what Bailey’s father claims is a Swiss Troll. But during a routine extermination job, Bailey and his father encounter Axel Pazuzu, a dangerous, dog-headed adversary who is determined to take down Buckleby and Son’s and steal the troll for himself. While Bailey and his father share the same rusty hair and bright green eyes, their approaches to life are nothing alike. Bailey wants to communicate with the monsters and help them return to their homes, but his father is determined to keep them in cages. Bailey is brave and intelligent, and Savannah is a girl to be reckoned with, but they seem unreasonably levelheaded and adept even when battling 3,000-year-old monsters, which depresses tension significantly. Wacky humor and an unusual cast of characters keep the pages turning anyway, but a lackluster story and a flat ending may prove disappointing. The human characters present white.
Monsters and mayhem—but unfortunately mundane. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-16578-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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