Puns and wordplay abound in this droll science-y/fantasy adventure that’s sure to please...and is, one hopes, the first of...
Can a crayon save the world? Maybe with the help of a domino and a sofa….
River lives with his aunt Bernie outside the town of Cheshire. He and his friends Freak and Fiona live in the last three houses still inhabited in the Sunnyside development. The rest were abandoned or obliterated by the local coal-seam fire that’s been burning for 12 years…long enough to get its own name: Hellsboro. When a beat-up green sofa appears at their bus stop in front of Old Man Underhill’s house, the three make use of it as a lounging spot…until they find a rare zucchini-colored crayon between the cushions and discover that the Underhill house has a new and more than slightly bizarre occupant. Alf (and his sentient sofa) enlist the trio’s help in trying to stop a takeover of Earth by a dictator from another realm. What do the local chemical plant, mysterious flash mobs and the deaths of River’s parents have to do with the dictator’s plans for Earth? Clark’s debut is refreshingly bonkers. It offers thinking kids humor that is neither afraid of the potty nor confined to it. Most of the characters (and some of the furniture) have their quirks, but there is a realism at the core that readers will respond to.
Puns and wordplay abound in this droll science-y/fantasy adventure that’s sure to please...and is, one hopes, the first of many from Clark. (Humor. 9-14)Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-20666-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Action packed and wildly creative.
A boy fights to protect his family’s Coney Island amusement park from developers and save his parents’ marriage using magic ink that allows drawings to come to life.
Two years ago, sixth graders Eric “Doodles” King and his best friend, Alan “Yoo-hoo” Yoo, created Monster Club, in which members draw monsters and pit them against each other in battle, but the other club members are beginning to lose interest. At home, Eric worries that his arguing parents will separate and that King’s Wonderland, the amusement park that’s been in his dad’s family for generations, will have to close. When Eric discovers some smelly old ink and uses it to create “a literal magic marker” that allows the monsters he draws to come to life, he believes he’s found a way to save King’s: by having a real-life monster battle. Matters get wildly out of hand, however, when Eric brings the magic ink to school and bully Darren Nuggio uses it to create an army of monsters, leading to an exciting, sustained action sequence. A prologue and a tale from King Neptune, an eccentric old man who wanders the Coney Island boardwalk, provide some family history for Eric that is rooted in early-20th-century Eastern European pogroms. An epilogue offers an origin story for the magic ink and a surprise twist, setting things up for the sequel. Names signal ethnic diversity in the supporting cast. Art not seen.
Action packed and wildly creative. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313663-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A droll and clever opener likely to leave readers breathless both with laughter and anticipation.
The fourth wall suffers major breaches as young characters from a popular fantasy series and the "real real world" join forces to battle threats in both.
Born of a real mother and a fictional dad, Bethany has been searching for her father ever since he disappeared into a book on her fourth birthday. When classmate Owen sees her materializing out of a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, she unwillingly acquires a gobsmacked ally who persuades her to pick up a finding spell from the cliffhanger scene at the end of Volume 6 in his adored Kiel Gnomenfoot series. Owen tags along to do the unthinkable: change the plot by saving the Dumbledore-ish Magister from death at the hands of mad scientist and archvillain Dr. Verity. Crises snowball as Owen finds himself caught in a climactic battle between Magic and Science in the yet-to-be-published seventh volume. Meanwhile, Bethany is left on this side of the printed page to somehow prevent the Magister, enraged by the revelation that he's fictional, from freeing all made-up people and creatures and exiling their creators into a storybook to see how they like having no free will. Riley concocts a tasty mix of familiar tropes and truly inventive twists for his Gnomenfoot scenario plus a set of broadly rendered scene stealers for a supporting cast. For a plot, he dishes up a nonstop barrage of situational pickles for his increasingly desperate protagonists.
A droll and clever opener likely to leave readers breathless both with laughter and anticipation. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0919-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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