In his closest approach yet to self-parody, Bellairs sends an assortment of characters back in time for a series of surreal, hair-raising adventures. Behind a bricked-up door in his old house, Professor Childermass discovers a trolley that's been modified to travel in time. He concocts a harebrained scheme to go back 500 years and save Constantinople from the Turks; his two young friends, Johnny Dixon and Byron ("Fergie") Ferguson, find him out and invite themselves along. Amidst a confusion of Turkish, Greek, and Venetian soldiers, the three meet Aurelian Townsend—the trolley's modifier—and are variously chased, captured, wounded, and miraculously healed, saved by ghosts, and forced to take a pop quiz by a menacing magic Guardian ("Name the seven kings of Rome"); they also wend their way through tunnels and fly through the air. In the climactic scene, they temporarily save a crowd massed in Hagia Sofia when the professor's snide familiar, the Egyptian god Horus (also known as Bradley), frightens the Turks away with the apparition of a huge falcon singing "The Bear Went Over the Mountain." The companions finally return to the trolley and—after a brief side-trip to a spooky future—lurch safely back to their own time. Brace yourself for a wild, herky-jerky, tongue-in-cheek ride, not as gruesome as Eyes of the Killer Robot, but full of danger nonetheless.
Pub Date: April 15, 1989
ISBN: 1617563447
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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