A purrfect caper for a not-too-criminal kitty
A real cat burglar—literally—stars in this British import.
A mysterious job offer takes Atticus, a brown tabby cat with a talent for theft, to an English seaside town. There, he learns that some crafty magpies want to hire him to steal all the town’s jewelry. Magpies being notoriously deceitful, Atticus is suspicious, but the promise of sardines as payment wins him over. In Littleton-on-Sea, not a notably diverse town, he finds a home with the family of a police detective, the Cheddars, and gets to burgling. The more he steals, the more the family’s dad gets to work, so Atticus thinks he’s doing the Cheddars a favor. However, when Inspector Cheddar gets in trouble because he can’t solve the recent crime wave, Atticus decides to turn the tables on the magpies. Meanwhile the Cheddar children begin to notice some interesting things about Atticus. Can they convince their dad when they tell him who's behind the burglaries? And can they do it before the magpies raid the local fair? Gray endows Atticus with such a confident personality that readers will be sure he’ll solve everything, but she includes some nice suspense later in the story when things go drastically wrong. Kids who like a bit of light crime fiction will certainly enjoy it, but readers who love animals, especially cats, will be purring throughout.
A purrfect caper for a not-too-criminal kitty . (Fantasy/mystery. 7-9)Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-571-28449-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As Fred would (does, actually) exclaim: “Ding-dong donkey donuts, Super Fly!” Fans of Super Diaper Baby will agree.
From the “bug-centric” burg of Stinkopolis rises Super Fly, diminutive defender of the city dump—not to mention the planet beyond.
Following in the footsteps of his renowned dad, inventor of the Poop-A-Rama (“the perfect appliance for any housefly household”), nerdy fourth-grader Eugene Flystein has developed not only a device that converts boogers into lunchroom pizzas, but the Ultimo 6-9000, a device that increases intelligence and strength by a factor of 9,000. Unfortunately, the latter’s first subject is class bully Cornelius C. Roach—who races off to build giant robot rats and roaches with the aim of exterminating (wait for it) “HUMANS! Dun, dun, dun.” What can Eugene do but soup himself up likewise, don a cape and his little sister’s tights, and buzz off to battle? In a narrative festooned with swarms of small cartoon drawings and chapter heads like “Nice Flies Finish Last” and “Your Fly is Down,” this mighty mite, with able if overcaffeinated sidekick Fred Flea, survives a series of fiendishly clever traps and attacks on the way to a win. But the triumph is short-lived—roaches being, as everyone knows, hard to kill—and further conflicts loom.
As Fred would (does, actually) exclaim: “Ding-dong donkey donuts, Super Fly!” Fans of Super Diaper Baby will agree. (Superhero farce. 7-9)Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61963-379-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
A buoyant eye-opener for younger readers under the impression that African folk tales begin and end with Anansi.
Naidoo and Grobler follow up their Afrocentric collection of Aesop’s Fables (2011) with a fresh set of tales drawn from Amharic, Luo, Zulu and other traditions.
“Once, Lion wanted to check that all the animals knew who was boss. So he went to each in turn.” In these breezy retellings the lessons are pointed but (generally) nonfatal: Lion gets a sudden comeuppance from Elephant (“Who is King?”); Hippo discovers that Fire is a chancy friend (“Why Hippo Has No Hair”); a clever “Miller’s Daughter” outwits a harsh sultan with help from a djinni; an elephant with a newly stretched-out trunk uses it not for spanking, as Kipling’s Elephant’s Child does, but to make eating and drinking easier. In his cartoon illustrations, Grobler outfits humans in traditional regional dress and animals either similarly or sometimes with vibrant stripes or other decorative patterns. The stories range from one to six pages each, and the language lends itself with equal ease to reading aloud or silently. Though aside from an occasional word or song they are light on specific cultural markers, the tales offer a rich assortment of chuckle-worthy tricks, suspenseful adventures and salutary examples of behavior laudable or otherwise.
A buoyant eye-opener for younger readers under the impression that African folk tales begin and end with Anansi. (introduction, source notes) (Folk tales. 7-9)Pub Date: April 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-84780-514-0
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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