Anyone who’s ever felt like the world’s smallest giant will find something to like in this book and will enjoy being...
Children who thought they could never identify with a giant may be surprised by this classically Dahl-esque British import.
Muncle Trogg is the world’s smallest giant, and he may also be the smartest. He’s the only giant who isn’t afraid of little human schoolgirls. Actually, he’s the only giant who’s ever met one. Everyone else is terrified of the “Smallings” and their magic killing sticks. But Muncle goes to visit a human town for himself, to see if he could decipher the letters in their books of magic. Curious, open-minded and no bigger than a Smalling, Muncle is hated by every other giant. Even his brother likes to dangle him upside-down for fun. This, of course, makes him the ideal hero for a children’s book. Even the most rosy-spectacled readers will be astounded at how many feats of glory he pulls off in 224 pages. The many surprises are the book’s greatest strength, but also its weakness. The action sometimes feels haphazard. Just how did Muncle get from the floor show at a royal banquet to the bottom of a volcano in only a few chapters? Then again, life is haphazard.
Anyone who’s ever felt like the world’s smallest giant will find something to like in this book and will enjoy being astounded on every page. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-37800-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
A fast, fun origin story with appealing wish fulfillment.
On her 10th birthday, Aleca Zamm discovers she can stop time.
After some nasty bullying and a frame job by the class mean girl, a teacher’s pet, Aleca’s asked by the principal for her name. When she says it, time freezes; saying it again unfreezes time. What’s this newfound ability good for? Chaos! Aside from taking a peek at an upcoming math quiz (she has a bit of test anxiety), she has fun setting up a humiliating tableau for her tormenters and then restarting time. Her wish fulfillment continues as she experiments with her ability before her orange-haired great-aunt arrives—because of Aleca. Aleca, like Aunt Zephyr, is a Wonder: one who gains a power upon turning 10. It skips a generation in the Zamm family and has caused lots of misery to some (a mind reader was forced to become a hermit, and her grandfather could talk to animals, but they would never leave him alone). Zephyr can help. Wonders are immune to one another’s abilities, and Aunt Zephyr warns that someone could be looking for them….Aleca’s ability is likely to provoke both envy and thought on the part of readers, though some flourishes, such as her little dances while time’s stopped, feel arbitrary. Aleca’s white, and her best friend is a bilingual Spanish speaker, but most characters lack physical descriptions and racial or ethnic markers.
A fast, fun origin story with appealing wish fulfillment. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7060-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Evil gets gooey comeuppance, and the forest is safe…for now.
Uh oh—the Super Magic Happy Forest (2016) faces a new, and particularly slimy, threat.
Sliding out from under his rock prison, twirly-mustachioed Zorgoth, self-proclaimed Super Slug of Doom, melodramatically proclaims, well, doom once he quaffs the Potion of Power. Cue the five unlikely heroes who rescued the forest last time: Hoofius the satyr, Herbert the garden gnome, Blossom the unicorn, Twinkle the fairy, and Trevor the ambulatory mushroom! Can they follow the ghastly gastropod’s winding green slime trail past an irate dragon’s molten hot tub, through a village of ogres, and over other obstacles to the mountaintop where a goblet of the puissant potion burbles atop its plinth? Long sends his intrepid questers through a series of full-spread cartoon scenes festooned with magical creatures, mishaps, puckish labels (the Happy Forest has something for everyone, it seems, from “free unicorn rides” to a “stable internet connection”), and side comments in dialogue balloons. In the end the slug is (nonfatally) squashed, his schemes are quashed, and the heroes left awash in admiration as the forest residents do what they do best…PARTY!
Evil gets gooey comeuppance, and the forest is safe…for now. (Picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: June 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05435-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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