National Book Award winner Blundell (What I Saw and How I Lied, 2008) explores the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires in this well-crafted, literary page turner.
Resourceful, frank and observant, with a wry sense of humor, 14-year-old Minnie must take work as a lady's maid for the unscrupulous and ostentatious Sumps, who are moving to San Francisco, when her beloved and restless father gambles away the family's Philadelphia tavern. "I'd rather wash the greasiest pots in the tavern. I'd rather clean the fish," she confides in her diary. Mrs. Chester Sump, her remote, 16-year-old daughter Lily and Minnie arrive in San Francisco on April 17, 1906, just in time for the biggest society event of the season—Enrico Caruso’s appearance in Carmen. At 5:12 the next morning, a massive earthquake tears through the city. The author deftly incorporates true events, circumstances and key historical figures into the rapidly unfolding fictional plot, in which Minnie is thrown into a moral dilemma after she is mistaken for someone else. Blundell achieves an impressive balance, portraying the catastrophic destruction and fight to save the city while imbuing the story with elements of mystery, melodrama and a Mark Twain–like sensibility. As Minnie uncovers truly corrupt and greedy goings-on, perpetrated by characters such as "Slippery Andy," and also witnesses heroic firemen in action, her sense of what it means to live with integrity crystallizes.
Exciting, suspenseful, absorbing and informative. (epilogue, historical note, archival photographs, author's note) (Historical fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-31022-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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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. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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