A young adventurer-in-training keeps her wits about her and her eyes on the prize despite an uncooperative mother, snickering classmates and her own clumsiness—for there is Lost Treasure to be found, and more, in her seemingly ordinary Connecticut town. Modeling herself after the intrepid heroine of her absent dad’s adventure novels, Tiernay plunges headlong into an investigation after overhearing a restaurant conversation about lost Revolutionary War Era gold, and then learning that a sword of similar vintage has vanished from a local antiques shop. Some library research, a bit of spying and a late-night chase later, she and Kevin, nerdy but game son of the man her mom is dating, find themselves locked in an abandoned cellar with not only the sword, but an entire trove of stolen loot. Simner deftly tucks in clues, subplots and enough tongue-in-cheek humor to keep the suspense from turning scary. Her focused determination overriding all obstacles and mishaps, Tiernay makes an appealing protagonist, and by the triumphant close she’s not only helped solve a rash of local crimes, but has even unearthed that gold. Fine fare for recent Cam Jansen and Encyclopedia Brown graduates. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-8234-1914-2
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits.
Who needs dragons when there are Terrible Lizards to be fought?
Having recklessly boasted to King Arthur and the court that he’d slain 40 dragons, Sir Erec can hardly refuse when Merlin offers him more challenging foes…and so it is that in no time (so to speak), Erec, with bookish Sir Hector, the silent and enigmatic Black Knight, and blustering Sir Bors with his thin but doughty squire, Mel, in tow, are hewing away at fearsome creatures sporting natural armor and weapons every bit as effective as knightly ones. Happily, while all the glorious mashing and bashing leads to awesome feats aplenty—who would suspect that a ravening T. Rex could be decked by a well-placed punch to the jaw?—when the dust settles neither bloodshed nor permanent injury has been dealt to either side. Better yet, not even the stunning revelation that two of the Three Stooges–style bumblers aren’t what they seem (“Anyone else here a girl?”) keeps the questers from developing into a well-knit team capable of repeatedly saving one another’s bacon. Phelan endows the all-white human cast with finely drawn, eloquently expressive faces but otherwise works in a loose, movement-filled style, pitting his clanking crew against an almost nonstop onslaught of toothy monsters in a monochrome mix of single scenes and occasional wordless sequential panels.
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268623-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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PROFILES
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
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