A pale imitation of Gordon Korman’s best.
Will Ian’s friendships survive bully school? Will he survive?
East Huron fifth-grader (soon to be sixth-) Ian Hart is loyal to his friends Ash, Mark, and Devon. Devon may not be the nicest kid, but Ian thinks he protects the quartet from bullies. On the brink of summer and the last day of elementary school, Devon trades lunches with Ian and slips his newly acquired PB&J to Max, who’s been trying to befriend Ash and Ian. Allergic to peanuts, Max nearly dies, and Ian and friends land in the Juvenile Academy for Noncompliant and Underachieving Students, a summer camp for bullies. If they fail to learn their lesson, they’ll end up in the KinderCorp Children’s Village—actual reform school. Though they’re younger by two years than the rest of the residents, Devon befriends the cool kids and blackmails Ian and Ash into giving up their new quirky friends. When Devon’s actions make him uncomfortable, Ian must decide whether to risk being a target or turn a blind eye. The incident that sends the boys to camp in Weinberger’s debut sets an unrealistic tone that the story never shakes. What four sets of parents would allow their kids to be sent away for an act so obviously perpetrated by one? The realistic relationships among the kids can’t save this at-times confusing tale of troubled preteens. The cast appears to be a largely white one.
A pale imitation of Gordon Korman’s best. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-90252-6
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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