Fans of the movie hoping to re-create the experience will be disappointed, as will kids hoping for a preview—why bother?...
Lego loser makes good.
In this novelization of The Lego Movie, Everytoy Emmet has bought the line peddled by President (secretly evil Lord) Business lock, stock and brick. He happily joins all the other residents of Bricksburg in singing “Everything Is Awesome” morning, noon and night, and he loves the TV show Where Are My Pants? When he discovers a strange object called the Piece of Resistance on the construction site where he works, he reluctantly assumes the role of anointed Special One, prophesied to save the world from annihilation by the superweapon Kragle. Together with a motley group of Master Builders that includes punk rebel Wyldstyle, Batman, the wizard Vitruvius and the dippy amalgam UniKitty, he takes on President/Lord Business, his chief minion, Bad Cop, and countless Lego robots and micromanagers. The film loses a lot in its translation to print. Innately funny visual gags like Emmet’s interchangeable outfits and his Lego houseplant fall flat. The reveal of the fearsome Kragle as a tube of Krazy Glue with some letters missing is thoroughly unfunny, as it must be laboriously explained in prose, and, lacking both a visual and an explanation, the fact that the Piece of Resistance is the tube’s cap will be utterly lost on readers not familiar with the movie. As adapter Howard has elected (or been directed) to write the novelization from the point of view of the Lego characters, the metatextual moments in which the characters interact with the human space that surrounds their Lego worlds lose all their punch (and sense).
Fans of the movie hoping to re-create the experience will be disappointed, as will kids hoping for a preview—why bother? (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-62464-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. The fictional plotters—based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells—are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume.
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35902-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds.
Pranksters George and Harold face the deadliest challenge of their checkered careers: a supersmart, superstrong gym teacher.
With the avowed aim of enticing an audience of “grouchy old people” to the Waistband Warrior’s latest exploit, Pilkey promises “references to health care, gardening, Bob Evans restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives.” He delivers, too. But lest fans of the Hanes-clad hero fret, he also stirs in plenty of fart jokes, brain-melting puns, and Flip-O-Rama throwdowns. After a meteorite transforms Mr. Meaner into a mad genius (evil, of course, because “as everyone knows, most gym teachers are inherently evil”) and he concocts a brown gas that turns children into blindly obedient homework machines, George and Harold travel into the future to enlist aid from their presumably immune adult selves. Temporarily leaving mates and children (of diverse sexes, both) behind, Old George and Old Harold come to the rescue. But Meaner has a robot suit (of course he has a robot suit), and he not only beats down the oldsters, but is only fazed for a moment when Capt. Underpants himself comes to deliver a kick to the crotch. Fortunately, gym teachers, “like toddlers,” will put anything in their mouths—so an ingestion of soda pop and Mentos at last spells doom, or more accurately: “CHeffGoal-D’BLOOOM!”
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-50492-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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