Kara and her team may be super, but this adventure is just OK.
The popular TV series branches out into print.
Kara Danvers, aka Supergirl, protects the citizens of National City from danger with the help of her sister, Alex; the Martian J’onn J’onzz; and the Department of Extranormal Operations. Kara is flying high after a series of victories when ordinary citizens all over the city begin developing superpowers. Some of these new meta-humans try using their powers for good, but of course a few bad apples exploit their gifts for evil. It’s up to Supergirl and her supporting cast to sort everything out and get things back to normal. This middle-grade novel takes place somewhere in the late events of Season 2 of the CW series Supergirl. Mon-El is still on Earth and just getting used to its culture, and James Olsen’s vigilante act as Guardian is fresh to the whole crew. Fans of the show will be able to easily slip into the timeline, and new readers are given enough exposition to catch up. The novel is as light and zippy as an episode of the show, transplanting the beloved characters from screen to the page with relative ease. Less successful is the action, which is clunky and artlessly described. The novel wraps everything up effectively so as to not jostle the series’ continuity, so much so that older readers may feel uninvested by the novel’s end, but young fans will love spending more time with their favorite characters. (Major characters are white with the exception of James Olsen, who is black, and the Martian, who is greenish in his natural guise and black in his human secret identity.)
Kara and her team may be super, but this adventure is just OK. (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2814-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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