Adventures aplenty, with oodles of scene-stealing monsters both mega and mini.
While seeking her kidnapped father, an 11-year-old English girl is astonished to discover that they both belong to a secret community of people who are gifted with the ability to conjure magic creatures from remembered emotions.
Eva Ibbotson meets Edward Lear in this extravagantly silly series opener. Even before Elizabeth “Bitsy” Wilder’s widowed father is abruptly whisked away in the first chapter, a horned, purple, bathtub-size hamstoceros wrecks her home. This calamity is followed in short order by encounters with a teeming horde of other winsome magicores with specific abilities and comical names, such as the huffluff, scutterflix, and flabberghast. Some, like the aptly named doomicorn and a dangerous spiderpede capable of shooting “acidic snot bombs,” add excitement to the ensuing thrill ride. Bitsy, who presents white, and her British Sri Lankan bestie, Kosh Ranasinghe, work together to track down Bitsy’s dad with help from a remarkable reference book that flips open to provide just the information they need. Kosh turns out to be cosmodynamic, like Bitsy and her dad, and the friends compete with evil chaos-conjurors in the hunt for a prized magical artifact called Arkwright’s Gyrowheel. The end leaves the villains temporarily thwarted but far from vanquished, setting things up for the sequel. Wyatt’s whimsical, detailed spot illustrations open each chapter, highlighting a charming array of magicores.
Adventures aplenty, with oodles of scene-stealing monsters both mega and mini. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781536241600
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2025
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
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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