Not content with her rollicking science adventures in the Magic School Bus, Ms. Frizzle continues her explorations of history begun in Ancient Egypt. One Saturday she spots her student Arnold going to Craig’s Castle Shop, and leads him, the shop owner, and a costume designer into the distant, medieval past. Borders of the bright, word-ballooned pictures fill in the narrative with definitions and descriptions, while knights lay siege, ladies run the castle, and Arnold (camouflaged as a rose bush) gets to smuggle a letter out to Lord Robert. Besides the usual high and low humor and action-packed information, an end page of notes, “Don’t believe everything you read!” fills kids in on what’s made up and what needs a little more detail. There cannot be too many castle books, and her many fans will be pleased to see Ms. Frizzle explore new, and old worlds. Next stop: Ancient China. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-590-10820-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A story in which themes and historical information outshine the character development.
An orphan leaves her oppressive orphanage’s squalor and struggles to keep her place at a girls’ school in 1904 London.
Lainey Philipps’ intellectual curiosity, born from her voracious reading habits, garners the attention of Lady Anne Blunt, who offers her a place at Lovelace Academy. Lainey, whose mother was Jewish, loves the academics but is ostracized and belittled by her posh classmates. After her roommate’s lies threaten her enrollment, Lainey learns of the Lovelace Society, a secret group that supports women scientists. The members have a file on scientist Mileva Einstein (co-author Benedict also wrote 2016’s The Other Einstein). Lainey believes that if she can help Mileva with her research, she won’t be expelled. With resources borrowed from a friend, she makes her way across Europe to the Einsteins’ residence in Switzerland. Unexpected obstacles provide conflict during her journey as she encounters classism and the consequences of mistaken impressions; side characters in this story arc display more nuance. Occasionally, the authors toss out heavy-handed moral messages and canned platitudes that clash with the bleaker look at conditions at the time for orphans, women, and other minorities (such as Lainey’s friend with dyslexia and a character who’s from an unspecified nomadic people). Refreshingly, the text doesn’t elevate cerebral pursuits over caretaking in its message of equality—emotional bonds and shared support are shown to aid in academic advancement—but, disappointingly, the secret-society plot fizzles out.
A story in which themes and historical information outshine the character development. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950213
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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