A children’s tale full of loopy, good-hearted energy—a fun read.
A ladybug family helps extraterrestrials deliver lifesaving cures to dying kids in this sequel.
In their previous escapade, the Bopper family of ladybugs—Papa Trey, Mama Shelly, and offspring Tribeetleye, Antenny, and Leggy—worked together to fend off an aphid invasion from their citrus-tree home in Missionville, Texas. As the five are celebrating their victory, a spacecraft lands nearby holding aliens from the planet Infinite in the Andromeda galaxy. They’re human-sized, mushroom-shaped, and pearl-colored, and have come to Earth on a peaceful mission. As Capt. Mushroomy explains, the Boppers have demonstrated qualities that make them ideal for a crucial mission: carry the cures for a fatal virus to a children’s hospital and prevent an epidemic. (Humans are too visible and can’t fly.) The Boppers accept the challenge; the cure-equipped microchips are implanted on their abdomens; and the ladybugs (hidden in a peace lily) are delivered to the hospital. One by one, the Boppers allow human ally Dr. Peter Optimum to remove each dose and treat the kids—but then other forces, including a greedy pharmaceutical company and a foreign government (“Crussia”), try to get the cures for themselves. But with some teamwork, alien tech, optimism, and a little song and dance to keep everyone’s spirits up, the good guys have a great chance to triumph. Treviño (Ladybugs on a Mission, 2013) puts together an unusual mix of sci-fi, humor, adventure, and inspiration in her amusing children’s book. Besides that, the story frequently breaks into song, or even tap-dancing musical numbers. The lyrics are generally adapted from existing songs; for example, to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine”: “You are our lighthouse, our only lighthouse. / You make us happy when you show hope.” The novel is gently didactic, promoting virtues like trust, optimism, generosity, courage, and disability inclusiveness. The children’s diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds are treated with interest and respect. While the need for ladybugs to deliver the cures never really makes sense, readers probably won’t mind.
A children’s tale full of loopy, good-hearted energy—a fun read.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-6583-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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