An uneven but enjoyable-enough adventure.
When Aunt Lin goes missing in Fuzhou, 11-year-old Mia might be the only one who can find her—and maybe solve a centuries-old mystery along the way.
Although she hasn’t been to China since she was a very little girl, Mia isn't looking forward to summer there, away from her friends. But Aunt Lin’s excitement about sharing “where their family had come from” is contagious, and Mia loves hearing her old histories of an exiled Ming emperor and his long-lost treasure. After Aunt Lin disappears, Mia realizes, with the help of a family heirloom conveniently–turned–treasure map, that solving the emperor’s riddle is the key to rescuing her kidnapped aunt. Readers will appreciate the portrayal of a second-generation immigrant’s gradual sense of belonging in a distant, inherited home. They may also recall a more humorous and plausible treatment of that experience in Thanhha Lai’s Listen, Slowly (2015)—starring, coincidentally, another Mia. Zhang’s middle-grade debut then takes a turn into a crowded field: puzzle-solving, kid-detective stories. Here, it’s a fresh take; it’s a treat to get a side of ancient Chinese lore and contemporary geography with the standard mystery fare. Readers may wish for historical backmatter and a more-detailed map to flesh out both lore and land, however. Unfortunately, occasionally ponderous writing (“Mia gave Jake a speaking look”) and an abundant-to-the-point-of-distraction use of italics (including, inconsistently, Chinese words) detract from a worthy story.
An uneven but enjoyable-enough adventure. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7862-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Unforgettably quirky, fast-paced fun.
In a race against their enemies, the Porch girls must find a peculiar pearl in order to foil a fiendish plot.
After defeating a monstrous Kyrgalops in The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (2024), Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch find themselves (after a series of madcap events) at Lake Kagloopy’s Purple Pearl Hotel with their mentor, Millicent Quibb. Quibb informs the trio that they must find the titular pearl before the members of their evil mad-scientist rivals, the KRA, do. If they fail, the KRA (whose members include the malevolent mayor, Majestina DeWeen, and her slimy sycophantic lawyer, Ashley Cookie) plans to use the gem to bestow the Gift of Endless Vibrancy on the villainous Talon Sharktūth. Hilarity ensues as the Porches attend the annual Shrimp Ball, encounter Umbrella Turkeys, search for Cloudite (floating cloud rocks), and don invisible but smelly woolen coats. Jokes aside, the girls’ story is intriguing, offering more clues to their mysterious backgrounds and tantalizing tidbits promising later adventures. McKinnon offers bountiful backstory (alongside a running joke to encourage readers to pick up the preceding volume) and enough guffaw-inducing jokes, zany footnotes, and creative jargon to enthrall readers both new and old with her delightful sophomore effort. Mixing humor, found family, and well-wrought worldbuilding, this sequel is a certain crowd pleaser. Final art not seen; in the previous book, the grayscale illustrations showed the girls with varying skin tones.
Unforgettably quirky, fast-paced fun. (appendices) (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780316555296
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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