Full STEAM ahead on a series debut equally charged with personal issues and science in (dramatic) action.
The Genius Academy turns out to be about more than dull classwork, as a lonely young inventor discovers.
Unable, despite her mother’s earnest pleas, to stop concocting devices like the death ray that blows a hole through the floor, Nikola reluctantly agrees to be shipped off to a (supposed) boarding school for geniuses. Hardly has she arrived, though, than the death ray is stolen and Nikki discovers that she and her six classmates are actually a team of secret agents employed to save the world on a regular basis. Fortunately, the young folk are an unusually talented bunch. Unfortunately, Nikki has a lot to learn about teamwork, trust, and friendship before the trail of clues dropped by the thief leads to a tense and twisty climax. Cleverly modeling her preteen cast on a gallery of historical geniuses, Keating has done her homework: Nikki reflects her near namesake not only in her work on electrical inventions, but also in other respects from eidetic memory to deep-seated distrust of others. Likewise, her associates include sharply observant Mary Shelley, musical and math prodigy Adam “Mo” Mozart, biology whiz Charlotte Darwin, and multiskilled Leo da Vinci. The white default is in place, but the kids’ adult overseer has dark skin, and in Marlin’s illustrations so do Mo and charismatic team leader Grace O’Malley.
Full STEAM ahead on a series debut equally charged with personal issues and science in (dramatic) action. (author’s note) (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-29521-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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