A pleaser for fans of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967) and like New York odysseys.
A jewelry heist, an abrasive new friend and the Big Apple itself carry a young visitor through lingering grief-related issues in this engaging, if thematically crowded outing.
Lexi and her little brother Kevin are spending the summer in New York City with their aunt while their father honeymoons with his new wife. Hardly does Lexi step off the train in bustling Grand Central Station than her purse—holding treasured mementos of her mother, two years dead—is snatched. She overhears a suspicious conversation in the station’s Whispering Gallery about jewels before being whirled off to her aunt’s West Side apartment house to meet the super’s hyper daughter, Kim Ling Levine. Electrified by news that gems destined for an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have disappeared, Lexi shares the aforementioned conversation with Kim Ling. She is only half-unwillingly dragged into an investigation that takes the young sleuths on a tour of Manhattan, from the Met and Central Park to some of Grand Central’s darker corners. Bonk casts and contrasts his sparky characters deftly. He good-humoredly portrays Kim (purple haired, and loud of both mouth and clothing) as a stereotypical New Yorker and Lexi as a quiet brooder who is nonetheless capable of holding up her end of a tumultuous relationship. Her new personal insights and the adventure itself ultimately work to thaw her frozen emotional state. Superfluous flashbacks and an extraneous subplot involving the rehabilitation of a teenage runaway are just distractions on the way to a boisterous happy ending.
A pleaser for fans of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967) and like New York odysseys. (Mystery. 11-13)Pub Date: May 22, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2349-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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