With smart witticisms to launch each quick-paced chapter, Isaiah is truly a mouse that roars.
Prolific Patterson and frequent collaborator Grabenstein offer this charming tale of Isaiah, a blue (yes—bright blue!) mouse, and his effort to break his family out of a very bad place.
Isaiah and his 96 siblings have been raised in a lab since birth, so they don’t really know what the outside world is like. Isaiah’s big brother Benji was the one to come up with a plan to break them all out…but only Isaiah is fortunate enough to make it to freedom. Alone in a huge and unfamiliar world filled with unexpected pleasures and dangers, Isaiah is lucky to find Mikayla, a beautiful but ordinary mouse with an extraordinary talent: she sings! Mikayla brings Isaiah back to her family (appropriately called a “mischief” in mouse vernacular), who formally adopts him. But Isaiah misses his original family, and with the help of his new relatives and a human friend or two, he mounts a daring rescue to save his siblings. Narrator Isaiah is a well-read mouse, and, without being pedantic about it, he shows off his vocabulary at every opportunity; his literacy comes in handy more than once, demonstrating its practicality as well. Sutphin provides black-and-white spot illustrations that recall the great mouse protagonists of the mid-20th century.
With smart witticisms to launch each quick-paced chapter, Isaiah is truly a mouse that roars. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34956-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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