by Jaclyn Moriarty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 2018
Imaginative but not fully realized.
The stipulations of her parents’ will send Bronte Mettlestone on a quest throughout Kingdoms and Empires.
When Bronte is just 10, her aunt Isabelle, with whom she lives, receives word that her parents—off gallivanting since Bronte’s birth—have been killed by pirates. Their will, bound with magic Faery cross-stitch, compels Bronte to deliver, in person, a gift to each of her other 10 aunts, spending at least three days with each one. She begins with Aunt Sue, who takes her to the elves’ Festival of Matchstick, where Bronte saves a baby from drowning and wins the Elvish Medal of Bravery. Next, Bronte frees Aunt Emma from wrongful imprisonment regarding the theft of a water sprite’s pepper grinder and saves the water sprite from death by drying. As her adventures go on, and on, Bronte learns more about the Whisperers, who spread Dark Magic from their kingdom, and the Spellbinders, who stopped it—and that she may have a closer relationship to all this magic than she knew. This is Moriarty’s first foray into middle-grade fiction, and it turns out to be about five aunt adventures too many—the never-ending whimsy becomes cloying, and the story stalls. Readers struggle to keep so many characters straight, let alone care about any of them, and without emotional connection there’s not enough incentive to keep reading. Most of the characters are described as light-skinned.
Imaginative but not fully realized. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-25584-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 2014
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ; color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
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by Rosanne Parry ; illustrated by Mónica Armiño ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2019
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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