Tongue embedded in cheek, Mone proffers a nautical tale well stocked with typecast pirates and starring an Irish farmboy whose aversion to fighting is surpassed only by his abilities in the water. Inducted into the knavish crew of the sloop Scurvy Mistress, young Fish finds himself involved both in piecing together baroque clues to the location of a fabulous golden treasure known as the Chain of Chuaca and in protecting the gentlemanly but naïve Captain Cobb from brutal mutineers and rival treasure hunters. Passing up The Buccaneers’ Book of Bombs, Guidelines for the Enterprising Pirate and like tomes from the ship’s library to learn pirate skills directly from his new shipmates, Fish becomes so proficient at scrubbing the decks and “seats of easement” that he soon earns acceptance despite his refusal to touch a gun or sword. Thanks to quick wit and an uncommon ability to swim he also saves numerous lives, plays a pivotal role in causing the climactic mutiny’s failure and winds up a hero—a very, very rich hero. Which, readers will agree, is only just. His pacifism adds an unusual element for stories of this ilk, too. (Adventure. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-11632-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
Pinkwater shifts locales from Hollywood to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., for this not-exactly-a-sequel to The Yggyssey (2009), but he continues to festoon his newest determinedly errant plot with thinly disguised literary and cultural references. Considering herself just an ordinary girl who happens to have cat eyes and whiskers, Big Audrey fetches up in a town where aliens land behind a certain barn/café for apple fritters on Wednesdays, a mansion built by a colonial “patroon spittoon tycoon” behaves skittishly and strange but somehow familiar figures like a scary Muffin Man and recognizable Wild Things (“Hudson River trolls”) wander through. Naturally (naturally!), a quest ensues to track down a terrifying spirit dubbed the Wolluf and to discover the connection between Big Audrey and a seemingly identical 19th-century lass who vanished suddenly. Well stocked with the usual oddball characters and fabulous throwaway lines (“Doughnuts are not unknown where I come from, but they are not used as food”), the book sails along in an airy and vastly entertaining way to an appropriately daffy resolution. Pinkwater is definitely on a roll—or in this case a fritter. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-22324-7
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
Disheartened by environmental destruction, a girl determines to do all she can to reverse the process in Cheng’s optimistic invitation to personal action. The girl plants a tree, walks to school instead of riding, cleans up the yard, writes, sings, marches, and speaks for the world, then imagines, in an affecting final series of illustrations, what would happen “if the children of the world did all that they could.” Woolman bases his ink-and-colored-pencil illustrations on the metaphor of the gradual cleaning of a stained-glass window; his early images are blue and gloomy, but frame by frame, a glistening world emerges. His depiction of the brilliance achieved aids the simple, restrained text enormously, as he adds the layers needed for making the text specific. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-56656-330-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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