A folk treasure as well as required reading for hikers, trail bikers, and would-be cryptid hunters.
A revised and considerably expanded version of one of the foundational guides to North American boojums, with (wait for it) glow-in-the-dark illustrations!
Johnson leaves out the splinter cat but adds the hoop snake, whose poison is “worse than a Frenchman’s socks,” to the roster of a 1910 original that was loosely based on lumberjacks’ yarns. And what a roster! From the hodag—“three thousand pounds of pure carnivorous appetite”—and the noxious immigrant leprocaun to the squirrellike wapaloosie, which will eagerly skitter up the nearest tree even when killed and made into a scarf, these 20 rare creatures are not only wildly peculiar of habit, but as likely as not to bring gruesome death—or worse. Taking particular aim at the French, Johnson expands on the original writer’s terse descriptions with colorful accounts of tragic encounters, personal observations as an aspirant to the Nobel Prize in cryptozoology, addenda (the “entire [hoop snake chapter] is false”), and a closing gallery of such summary facts as habitats, diets, and relative “fearsomeness” and “absurdity.” Mead gives both of these latter qualities visual expression with portraits of variously horned, fanged, grimacing monsters at each entry’s head, plus internal vignettes, bloodstains, and occasional double-page scenes of carnage. Luminescent ink on the cover and eight inside illustrations offers extra thrills in dimmer settings.
A folk treasure as well as required reading for hikers, trail bikers, and would-be cryptid hunters. (annotated bibliography) (Folklore/fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7611-8461-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not exactly a rip-off of Monsters, Inc. but with plenty of shared DNA in the casting and dialogue, it’s a yummy romp, served...
Conflicts in creaturedom continue as a new attack by the nefarious Ghorks leads to an epic food fight. Also monster dinner-theater cabaret.
This sequel to The Creature Department (2013) sends young hangers-on Elliot and Leslie along with hulking knucklecrumpler Gügor, fashion-forward fairy-bat Jean-Remy and the rest of tech company DENKi-3000’s motley array of nonhuman engineers and inventors to a grand food festival in nearby Simmersville. It seems that the Ghorks—five types of malign creature, each being a single outsized sensory organ—are experimenting with an elixir that will transform unwitting festival diners into a Ghorkolian army. Scotching that scheme requires not only heroic battles with snot-blasting nose-ghorks and like foes, but putting on a show (“WE HAVE SPOOKY CREATURE FEATURES! / HORNS AND FANGS! / TEETH AND TAILS! / AND POORLY TENDED FINGERNAILS!”) as prelude to a rousing climactic melee. As with its predecessor, the actual plot takes second place to the elaborate monster worldbuilding.
Not exactly a rip-off of Monsters, Inc. but with plenty of shared DNA in the casting and dialogue, it’s a yummy romp, served with generous sides of slapstick, satire and self-actualization topped with a dash of creaturely romance. (Fantasy. 10-13) . but with plenty of shared DNA in the casting and dialogue, it’s a yummy romp, served with generous sides of slapstick, satire and self-actualization topped with a dash of creaturely romance(Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59514-750-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hints at the end of a larger story arc notwithstanding, this continuation never develops much steam or clear direction.
Jinks returns to Victorian London’s fetid stews and ragged demimonde in this sequel to How to Catch a Bogle (2013).
Continuing to depict her setting in Dickensian detail, the author shifts her tale’s main focus from young bogler Birdie to ex-thief Jem Barbary. He struggles to reconcile conflicting drives to find and exact revenge on his treacherous former fagin Sarah Pickles and to chivvy weary old bogle-killer Alfred Bunce out of retirement in order to become his new apprentice. Something, as it eventually develops, is drawing the deadly, child-eating bogles—formerly so rare as to be widely believed to be mythical—to concentrate in one particular neighborhood’s sewers and cellars. Scary as the monsters are, and despite several narrow squeaks, luring them out and killing them with Alfred’s magical spear takes on a routine air as Jem’s warring agendas and stubborn refusal to believe that he has any true friends take center stage. Moreover, Josiah Lubbock, a promisingly irritating new character, is continually trotted out but then goes on to play no significant role (at least in this episode), and despite the author’s efforts to relegate the previous volume’s vivid, angelic-voiced protagonist Birdie to a supporting role, she continues to outshine Jem and everyone else.
Hints at the end of a larger story arc notwithstanding, this continuation never develops much steam or clear direction. (glossary of monsters and period slang) (Historical fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-08747-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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