Likely to win Jake more fans, this will have adventure seekers of both genders clamoring for volume three (likely to deal...
An adventure series mashup built on Indiana Jones-like tropes picks up steam with this second volume.
Three months have passed since eighth-grader Jake Ransom and his older sister Kady returned from the ancient land of Calypsos on Pangaea, where they saved the inhabitants—Neanderthals and lost Roman legionaries and ancient Maya—from the evil magister Kalverum Rex. Neither teen knows any more about the location of their archaeologist parents, missing three years now, but both are sure that their parents are lost somewhere in time. After an attack on their home, the siblings visit an Egyptian exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History only to be attacked again by the blood magic of Kalverum as he seeks the Key to Time. They are thrown into the desert kingdom of Deshret, cut off from the rest of Pangaea by a flesh-tearing windstorm. The bracelets given them by the elders of Calypsos also draw in their friends from their last adventure, and the five find themselves once again battling the Skull King and his minions while trying to find traces of their parents. Rollins' second Jake Ransom adventure is tighter, more magical and more thrilling than the series opener.
Likely to win Jake more fans, this will have adventure seekers of both genders clamoring for volume three (likely to deal with Norse lore, given the dropped hints). (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-147382-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Georgie's story will capture readers' imaginations with the very first sentences and then hold them hostage until the final...
In 1871, in the small town of Placid, Wis., a sister goes missing and a great adventure begins.
Disconsolate over the end of a promising courtship, Agatha Burkhardt runs off without so much as a goodbye to her younger sister, Georgie. When the sheriff attempts to locate and retrieve Agatha, he brings home not the vibrant sister that Georgie adores, but an unidentifiable body wearing Agatha’s ball gown. Alone in her belief that the body is not her sister’s, Georgie sneaks away in the dead of night, determined to retrace Agatha’s steps in order to solve the mystery of her disappearance and, she hopes, to bring her home. To Georgie's surprise, she’s joined on the journey by her sister’s former flame. And what a journey it is, fraught with mountain lions, counterfeiters and marriage proposals. The truly memorable characters and setting—particularly descriptions of the incredible phenomenon of passenger-pigeon nesting and migration—and the gradual unraveling of the mystery of Agatha’s disappearance make this one hard to put down. The icing on the cake, though, is Georgie’s narration, which is fresh, laugh-out-loud funny and an absolute delight to read.
Georgie's story will capture readers' imaginations with the very first sentences and then hold them hostage until the final page is turned. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86925-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
A whodunit that doesn’t live up to its intriguing premise.
Coded clues put two young sleuths on the trail of a magic mandala hidden somewhere in a huge, bustling department store.
Hardly has meek young Zander Olinga arrived for a visit with Zina Winebee, his grandmother and owner-manager of the Number Nine Plaza, than he learns of a threat to the continued existence of the renowned emporium. The danger is linked to Darkbloom, a rumored evil spirit set on reversing the good-fortune charm left by Nepali monks at the store’s founding. The stone tablet bearing the magical mandala vanished 90 years ago, and finding its hiding place becomes a race pitting Zander and intrepid new ally Natasha Novikov against unknown saboteurs whose minds have been taken over by Darkbloom. The keys to the tablet’s location are a series of ingenious word and number clues left by Zander’s great-granduncle Vladimir, and Guterson provides enough hints along the way for savvy readers to decode them. What he doesn’t do is give either his leads or the many-faceted store (which, over the course of the story, is explored from the Ferris wheel on its roof to the bakery in the cellar) any more depth or distinctive traits than he gives Nepali religious practice. Darkbloom remains a shadowy bugaboo, its actual nature and motivations unexplained and its fate left anticlimactically unresolved. Zander’s father is from Cameroon, and his mother reads white; names cue some diversity in the supporting cast. Final art not seen. (This review has been updated for factual accuracy.)
A whodunit that doesn’t live up to its intriguing premise. (Mystery. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780316484442
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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