While undeniably goofy and action-packed, this probably won’t gain fans among Egyptians or overweight people.
Third-grade spy Dexter Drabner from Mutant Rat Attack! (2017) returns for another wacky adventure.
A call on his AI skateboard (Battery-Operated Artificial Reasoning Device) from Big K, the head of their city’s chapter of the Super-Secret Spy Kids, summons Dex, Agent SK8, for a mission. But his high-tech (and also stinky) journey to the secret hideout is seen by abrasive new girl Aya (a black girl who provides some diversity to the largely white cast). A burglar has been sniffing around the mummy exhibit, and while on his class field trip, Dex is to try to learn why. The exhibit features the pharaoh Hun-Ga-Re, of the fictional Bur-Pe region of Egypt, famous for—as his name suggests—his appetite. His mummy holds a sandwich, and his sarcophagus a curse: “This hoagie can raise the dead! HANDS OFF!” After Dex catches Aya going for the mummy’s sandwich, robot ninjas commanded by the real villain appear and the fight wakes Hun-Ga-Re. Using nail polish, Aya transforms into the Pink Lynx, and the slapstick conflict escalates in a series of comic-strip panels with the action described play by play as if it were a football game. The silliness turns mean when, at the climax, Hun-Ga-Re spots fellow fat person/school bully Millicent wrapped in toilet paper, falls in love, and raises the dead against the villains to protect her.
While undeniably goofy and action-packed, this probably won’t gain fans among Egyptians or overweight people. (glossary) (Adventure. 7-12)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93298-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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