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
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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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