A fascinating premise set in a unique sensory world that almost delivers.
A girl raised in opulence and a poor boy cross paths and, through one another’s eyes, find their own strengths.
Eleven-year-old Una is the firstborn child of the Magister Populi of Antiquitilla. Her mother died several years earlier, and her father has been absorbed in grieving, leaving her yearning for familial love. Meanwhile, Julien, who lives in poverty, is learning to identify every plant in the kingdom from his loving yet ailing Baba, who was Una’s mother’s gardener. Una experiences the world through her nose, while Julien doesn’t understand the sense of smell but has a special ability to hear plants. The sensory differences between the two children are interesting, and they work together to find the elusive silva flower—for which Una’s father has set a reward—before it can be located by dangerous marauders. Each child has deeply personal reasons for hoping to find it. The lyrical prose captures a fairy-tale setting, although occasional cartoonish hijinks and stylized, excessively formal dialogue from the children feel jarring. The flow of the book is in snapshots—short, focused chapters jumping from character to character, palace to bog. Frequent coincidences and the tidy ending detract from the hard-fought growth Una and Julien achieve through their own efforts. Physical descriptions of characters are few, although Una and her family are cued as Black, and several references to natural Black hair feel othering.
A fascinating premise set in a unique sensory world that almost delivers. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68119-655-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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