“Science is no walk in the park,” he rightly proclaims. Also: “Long live geology!” (Graphic fiction/nonfiction hybrid. 7-10)
The top geologist at the Fizzmont Institute of Rad Science takes a solo journey right through the planet. It’s science! With monsters!
This unusually sized book—4 1/2 inches high by 13 inches long—contains appropriately long, skinny black-and-white scenes replete with finely inked detail and is designed to be turned 90 degrees and read vertically. Chad sends his intrepid explorer—depicted as a tiny, round-headed outline figure with rubbery limbs—down (and, for the second half, up, after a 180-degree turn) a continuous winding tunnel defined by masses of individually drawn boulders, bones and embedded artifacts. The text is delivered in comic-book–style dialogue, with balloons of hard science (“There are three common types of lava: basaltic, andesitic, and rhyolitic….”) interspersed with exclamations (“Crawling Curies, look at those bones!”). The nattering narrator not only encounters geological wonders, but complex mining works, teeming cities of sluglike “Subvisors,” all sorts of decidedly weird-looking giant creatures, including a “Quadclops” so huge that the journey necessarily takes an alimentary turn, and a host of toothy subterranean and aquatic attackers. Fellow travelers will understand why Leo breaks into tears when at last he emerges on a hill above Taipei.
“Science is no walk in the park,” he rightly proclaims. Also: “Long live geology!” (Graphic fiction/nonfiction hybrid. 7-10)Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59643-661-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure.
It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Joyful and funny.
Three friends fight an evil developer who wants to tear down the magical library.
What should this trio of friends do during summer vacation? Outdoorsy Kit, a White girl, despairs of her friends, Alita and Josh, both kids of color, she really does. Why do they want to read when they could go to the cemetery and get muddy instead? But in the library, Kit discovers an ability: When she touches certain books, she travels to a magical place. Faith, the Black head librarian, her hair in locs, explains with some surprise that Kit is a wizard. It’s a puzzler, Faith tells her, because wizardry doesn’t typically show up until someone turns 18, and Kit is only 10. Faith wants Kit to keep her wizardry a secret, but good luck keeping the knowledge from Alita and Josh, who eavesdrop. So the friends tag along while Kit learns magic (a significant component of which seems to be librarianship), gains a wizard cloak, and befriends Dogon, the half-dog, half-dragon who lives in the magical library forest. With Josh’s and Alita’s attention to detail and Kit’s natural magic, maybe they’ll be able to defeat Mr. Salt, the pink-faced CEO who plans to tear down the library—if impulsive Kit learns to channel her inner chaos and trust her friends. Playful illustrations complement the witty dialogue, dryly ironic narrative voice, and comical villainy.
Joyful and funny. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1493-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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