Entertainingly amusing while also showing sensitivity to children’s complex emotional lives.
An 8-year-old English boy travels by spaceship with a dapper lizard and a troll in this children’s fantasy novel.
Oscar William Tyler of Surbiton, England, discovers a large, talking, pipe-smoking lizard in his garden, dressed in “a shirt, waistcoat, trousers, and bedroom slippers.” The creature reminds Oscar of Grumps, his beloved, recently deceased grandfather. The lizard reveals that his name is “Larry the Lounge Lizard.” Over the coming weeks, the two enjoy several chats, and Oscar is excited to meet Larry’s troll friend, Nicholas Fijmeister, who Larry says is “decent by troll standards…he doesn’t very often try to kill his relatives.” The three take trips in the garden’s apple tree (which magically turns into a spaceship) to Larry’s home world, Tarastaria, which is inhabited by an array of creatures, including trolls like Nicholas, monkeys, humanlike “sloggles,” and monkeylike “gonks.” They’re ruled over by the tyrant Emperor Brummelfritz, whom Larry—an anti-royalist, like Grumps—calls “Emperor Bumface.” Oscar is shocked by the emperor’s cruelty, which includes the slated public execution of an innocent gonk, so he and his friends concoct a daring rescue that could bring democracy to Trolland. After some time back home, Oscar gets a new perspective on his experiences and his grief; his understanding mother says, “Maybe we all somehow find another world to inhabit in order to cope.” Clark’s debut provides silly humor that will appeals to kids’ love of the grotesque, but it also deftly brings out Oscar’s grief over his parents’ divorce and, especially, Grumps’ death; at one point, Oscar compares the latter to “a knife thrust into his heart.” The resemblances between Larry and Grumps are subtle but definite, and young readers can make connections between Oscar’s wish for continued closeness with Grumps and his eagerness to have Larry in his life. Another strength is the fact that Oscar’s parents aren’t clueless or critical; they make a real effort to connect with their son and understand his point of view, which Oscar notices and appreciates. The side characters, too, are well-drawn and contribute to the story.
Entertainingly amusing while also showing sensitivity to children’s complex emotional lives.Pub Date: March 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-976350-02-3
Page Count: 132
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.
Catch-22 is an unusual, wildly inventive comic novel about World War II, and its publishers are planning considerable publicity for it.
Set on the tiny island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea, the novel is devoted to a long series of impossible, illogical adventures engaged in by the members of the 256th bombing squadron, an unlikely combat group whose fanatical commander, Colonel Cathcart, keeps increasing the men's quota of missions until they reach the ridiculous figure of 80. The book's central character is Captain Yossarian, the squadron's lead bombardier, who is surrounded at all times by the ironic and incomprehensible and who directs all his energies towards evading his odd role in the war. His companions are an even more peculiar lot: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who loved to win parades; Major Major Major, the victim of a life-long series of practical jokes, beginning with his name; the mess officer, Milo Minderbinder, who built a food syndicate into an international cartel; and Major de Coverley whose mission in life was to rent apartments for the officers and enlisted men during their rest leaves. Eventually, after Cathcart has exterminated nearly all of Yossarian's buddies through the suicidal missions, Yossarian decides to desert — and he succeeds.
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1961
ISBN: 0684833395
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1961
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