A fun, fast-paced, and spooky read that may get young readers talking.
Witches, vampires, and vampire hunters tangle in this middle-grade adventure.
Ten-year-old Henrietta “Etty” Steele thinks that all vampires drink blood and are evil, pale, coldblooded, and emotionless. She also believes that they see poorly in bright light, have “extremely white” teeth, and stink like cabbage and other rank substances. She knows this because her no-nonsense mother, Felicity Steele, told her so. Felicity is married to a much-loved grocer, but she isn’t very friendly herself. Neither does she put bows in Etty’s hair or encourage her to make friends. Instead, Felicity, as an undercover vampire hunter, expects her daughter to develop supernatural hunting skills. She trains Etty in cemetery reconnaissance and how to kill vampires that transform into bats. However, Etty is perplexed when her skills remain weak despite nonstop summer practice. She’s also confused by a gentle, stuttering vampire boy named Vladimir Nox, who doesn’t smell a bit noxious. It terrifies her when her only friend, April Showers, whose style is as bright and cheerful as hers is dark, befriends him. Like Etty and April, Vladimir has a first name he dislikes, so he asks to be called “Dimi” instead. April’s kind attitude toward him causes Etty to reconsider what she thinks she knows about vampires. Debut author Grave, a former primary school teacher, deftly draws readers into the story via Etty’s perspective with simple yet creepy language (“The further we walked, the darker the graveyard became”). There are some moments of violence in the brisk text, but the author effectively counters the tension with humor, as when Felicity slyly compliments a “ratty” vampire on his teeth that look “almost perfect,” and he replies, “I brush twice a day.” The book has a less-than-happy ending, but this may also lead to real-life discussions about parent-child conflicts.
A fun, fast-paced, and spooky read that may get young readers talking.Pub Date: July 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71783-616-8
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Back to a Jurassic Park sideshow for another immensely entertaining adventure, this fashioned from the loose ends of Crichton's 1990 bestseller. Six years after the lethal rampage that closed the primordial zoo offshore Costa Rica, there are reports of strange beasts in widely separated Central American venues. Intrigued by the rumors, Richard Levine, a brilliant but arrogant paleontologist, goes in search of what he hopes will prove a lost world. Aided by state-of- the-art equipment, Levine finds a likely Costa Rican outpostbut quickly comes to grief, having disregarded the warnings of mathematician Ian Malcolm (the sequel's only holdover character). Malcolm and engineer Doc Thorne organize a rescue mission whose ranks include mechanical whiz Eddie Carr and Sarah Harding, a biologist doing fieldwork with predatory mammals in East Africa. The party of four is unexpectedly augmented by two children, Kelly Curtis, a 13-year-old "brainer," and Arby Benton, a black computer genius, age 11. Once on the coastal island, the deliverance crew soon links up with an unchastened Levine and locates the hush-hush genetics lab complex used to stock the ill- fated Jurassic Park with triceratops, tyrannosaurs, velociraptors, etc. Meanwhile, a mad amoral scientist and his own group, in pursuit of extinct creatures for biotech experiments, have also landed on the mysterious island. As it turns out, the prehistoric fauna is hostile to outsiders, and so the good guys as well as their malefic counterparts spend considerable time running through the triple-canopy jungle in justifiable terror. The far-from-dumb brutes exact a gruesomely heavy toll before the infinitely resourceful white-hat interlopers make their final breakout. Pell-mell action and hairbreadth escapes, plus periodic commentary on the uses and abuses of science: the admirable Crichton keeps the pot boiling throughout.
Pub Date: Sept. 28, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-41946-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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