Funny, poignant, and reassuringly upbeat by the end but free of glib platitudes or easy answers.
Family troubles temporarily strand 10-year-old Sunny in a Florida retirement community. Imagine the recreational possibilities.
In the hands of the sibling creators of Babymouse and Squish, even a story inspired by troubling circumstances in their own mid-1970s childhoods offers hilarious turns aplenty. Instead of a trip to the shore with a friend, Sunny finds herself on a solo flight to stay with her genial grandfather—in a development where a trip to the post office is the day’s big outing, Walt Disney World is hours away, and her exposure to senior culture includes being fawned over by old ladies. Happily, there is one other child around: Buzz, a groundskeeper’s boy, who turns her on to superhero comics and joins her in starting up a moderately lucrative business recovering golf balls and residents’ (illegal) lost cats. Less happily, interspersed flashbacks reveal the reason for the sudden change of plans by tracking her older brother Dale’s increasingly erratic behavior and drug abuse, leading up to an intervention in the wake of a violent incident. Colored by Lark Pien in subdued hues that subtly reflect Sunny’s state of mind, the sequential panels present both storylines in a mix of terse labels, brief dialogue, and, particularly, silent, effective reaction shots.
Funny, poignant, and reassuringly upbeat by the end but free of glib platitudes or easy answers. (afterword) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-74165-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“By March 5, 1770, it was dangerous to be a soldier in Boston.” In a few lines of terse prose illustrated with densely hatched black-and-white pictures, Decker lays out the causes of the tension between Bostonians and British troops, and then delivers a blow-by-blow account of events on that March night and the ensuing trials. Along with casting a grim tone over all, his dark, crowded illustrations capture the incident’s confusion and also add details to the narrative. Despite some questionable choices—he names most of the soldiers but none of the casualties, and except for a row of coffins in one picture, never mentions how many actually died—the author leaves readers with a general understanding of what happened, and with a final scene of John Adams (who defended the soldiers in court) pondering the necessity of protecting true Liberty from the “lawless mob,” some food for thought as well. (Informational picture book. 9-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59078-608-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
Goofy, overenthusiastic nonsense with just enough rambling plot to hold it all together
Falcon Quinn returns to another exclamation mark–laden year at a school where nobody understands him, the poor little angel—literally.
At the end of his last year at the Monster Academy, Falcon discovered his angelic nature as well as his true parentage: His father is the demonic Academy headmaster Crow; his mother, queen of the monster-killing guardians. None of this knowledge has made him any more popular. The other kids don't trust him anyway, and it doesn't help that he keeps finding himself in ridiculous scrapes. Did Falcon try to kill his friend Pearl, the famous Chupakabra of Peru? Did he stuff Quagmire, the puddle of bubbling glop, in his godzooka during band practice? When Falcon flees from monsters and finds himself among guardians, he discovers those monster-killers resemble his monster friends more closely than either side would like to admit. The silliness is consistently funny but not consistently age-appropriate; a pirate referring to the bottom of the sea as "Peter Tork's locker" is a groaner that will zoom right over the heads of middle-school readers. For the most part, however, egg-laying werechicken boys and Hamlet "as written in the original Frankenstein dialect" will keep giggles coming. The humor provides necessary counterpoint to the trowelled-on nobody-loves-me angst.
Goofy, overenthusiastic nonsense with just enough rambling plot to hold it all together . (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-172835-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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