Uncomplicated gateway fare for readers still working up to Percy Jackson or Jane Yolen’s Young Heroes series.
White teenage cousins discover that they have four days to reconstitute a magic shield that will save Earth from fiery destruction. First stop: ancient Greece.
The pseudonymous co-authors assemble tried-and-true, which is to say stock, elements into a plot-driven opener. When Trey and his gung-ho British cousin Samantha match up the halves of a disk dubbed the Heart of Light, they find themselves transported to a cave where they are immediately attacked by a harpy before just as suddenly snapping back to Trey’s basement. A wizardly figure appears to inform them that they are “Chosen Ones” tasked with finding the four long-hidden fragments of the Warrior’s Shield before an imminent “attack of the Dark.” They return to battle more harpies—or “winged filth” as the local satyrs repeatedly dub them—before tackling the “serpent woman” Medusa herself. Sam needs rescuing more than once by the boys, but her comically wild aggression (“I wanna kick some asp!”) both leaves the harpies in broken, bloody heaps and makes her a good match for cautious Trey, who recalls garbled bits of the legend of Perseus in time to snatch the Shield’s first piece and work an escape. De la Rue contributes occasional ink drawings that depict the skinny young heroes in battle with ragged mythological horrors; the author appends a follow-up miniquiz for “Greek Geeks.”
Uncomplicated gateway fare for readers still working up to Percy Jackson or Jane Yolen’s Young Heroes series. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-349-12436-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Little, Brown UK
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds.
Pranksters George and Harold face the deadliest challenge of their checkered careers: a supersmart, superstrong gym teacher.
With the avowed aim of enticing an audience of “grouchy old people” to the Waistband Warrior’s latest exploit, Pilkey promises “references to health care, gardening, Bob Evans restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives.” He delivers, too. But lest fans of the Hanes-clad hero fret, he also stirs in plenty of fart jokes, brain-melting puns, and Flip-O-Rama throwdowns. After a meteorite transforms Mr. Meaner into a mad genius (evil, of course, because “as everyone knows, most gym teachers are inherently evil”) and he concocts a brown gas that turns children into blindly obedient homework machines, George and Harold travel into the future to enlist aid from their presumably immune adult selves. Temporarily leaving mates and children (of diverse sexes, both) behind, Old George and Old Harold come to the rescue. But Meaner has a robot suit (of course he has a robot suit), and he not only beats down the oldsters, but is only fazed for a moment when Capt. Underpants himself comes to deliver a kick to the crotch. Fortunately, gym teachers, “like toddlers,” will put anything in their mouths—so an ingestion of soda pop and Mentos at last spells doom, or more accurately: “CHeffGoal-D’BLOOOM!”
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-50492-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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