Nearly founders under its informational load, but shark lovers will bite.
Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques, leads two fictive young explorers to a close encounter with a great white.
Though the urge to lecture wins out (“As we know,” a crew member drones, “sharks are being fished at a rate that’s faster than they can reproduce”), this graphic outing does end up carrying a hefty cargo of information about shark behavior, their role in the food chain, and continuing threats to their existence. Climaxed by a nerve-wracking demonstration of the tricky process of shark “tagging,” the marine expedition is also punctuated by glimpses of dolphins, whales, albatrosses, a deep-sea oarfish, and other sea creatures, not to mention the recovery of a huge trove of sunken treasure and undersea observations in no fewer than three submersibles: a clear Plexiglass shell, one disguised as a big seal, and one shaped like a shark. Considering that the latter two draw brief but violent attacks it’s a bit of a hard sell to claim that sharks are “very peaceful and likable,” but the wide-eyed students—calm, brown-skinned Bela and her timorous white friend Marcus—definitely come away, as do readers, understanding that humans are far more dangerous to sharks than vice versa. The lengthy blocks of dialogue and background commentary really squeeze the researchers and their finny subjects in St. Pierre’s brightly colored panels, but along with plainly making an effort to minimize talking heads and static standing groups, he manages to depict a diverse array of fish and other sea life.
Nearly founders under its informational load, but shark lovers will bite. (Graphic informational fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2088-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A-mew-sing fare for readers who sometimes feel like fraidycats themselves.
Two shelter cats take on a mysterious puss with weird powers who is terrorizing the feline community.
Hardly have timorous (and aptly named) Poop and her sophisticated buddy, Pasha, been brought home by their new “human beans” for a two-week trial than they are accosted by fiery-eyed Scaredy Cat, utterly trashing the kitchen with a click of his claws and, hissing that he’s in charge of the neighborhood, threatening that if they don’t act like proper cats—disdaining ordinary cat food and any summons (they are not dogs, after all), clawing the furniture instead of the scratching post, and showing like “cattitude”—it’ll be back to the shelter for them. Will Poop and Pasha prove to be fraidycats or flee to the cowed clowder of homeless cats hiding from the bully in the nearby woods? Nope, they are made of sterner stuff and resolutely set out to enlist feline allies in a “quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of purrs!” Cast into a gazillion very short chapters related by furry narrators Poop and Pasha, who are helpfully depicted in portrait vignettes by Herzog at each chapter’s head, the ensuing adventures test the defiant kitties’ courage (and, in some cases, attention spans) on the way to a spooky but poignant climax set, appropriately enough as it happens, in a pet graveyard.
A-mew-sing fare for readers who sometimes feel like fraidycats themselves. (Adventure. 9-11)Pub Date: March 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-49443-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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