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
Budding heroes defeat class and gender expectations as well as the occasional monster in this wry outing.
Thinking that it’s better to be fake knights than real peasants, Tim and his best buddy, Belinda, sign up to rescue a captured princess.
Unaware that they’ve been snookered into a dastardly scheme, the two youngsters hear that Princess Grace from the next kingdom over has been carried off in the claws of a fearsome and funky “stinx” and volunteer to accompany (reputedly) brave and noble Prince Ruprecht and his (reputedly) powerful magician Nerlim on a rescue mission. Accompanied by village idiot Ferkle, whose habit of shoving mud in his pants effectively lowers the level of humor even further, the two ersatz knights weather the Forest of Doom, the River of Doom, and a “troll bridge” across the Chasm of Doom despite a suspicious lack of assistance from either the prince or the magician…and arrive to discover that neither the stinx nor the princess is quite as expected either. In fact, the princess ends up being the rescuer (“That’s what you call irony,” she comments) when Ruprecht and Nerlim announce their intention to seize her and do away with any inconvenient witnesses. Tim and Belinda are rewarded with promotions for their efforts; readers will come away with both a cogent warning from Gibbs about the dangers of falling for fake news and better vocabularies due to his penchant for flagging significant words like gullible and malodorous in the narrative and then pausing to define and use them in sample sentences. Along with a full-spread map, Curtis supplies frequent pen-and-ink sketches of the cast in comical poses and straits. The races and ethnicities of the characters are not specified in the text, though cover art depicts characters of various skin tones.
Budding heroes defeat class and gender expectations as well as the occasional monster in this wry outing. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9925-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
Classic action-packed, monster-fighting fun
It’s been 42 days since the Monster Apocalypse began, and 13-year-old Jack Sullivan, a self-proclaimed “zombie-fighting, monster-slaying tornado of cool” is on a quest to find and rescue his not-so-secret crush, June Del Toro, whether she needs it, wants it, or not.
Jack cobbles together an unlikely but endearing crew, including his scientist best friend, Quint Baker; Dirk Savage, Parker Middle School’s biggest bully; and a pet monster named Rover, to help him save the damsel in distress and complete the “ULTIMATE Feat of Apocalyptic Success.” Middle-grade readers, particularly boys, will find Jack’s pitch-perfect mix of humor, bravado, and self-professed geekiness impossible to resist. His sidekicks are equally entertaining, and it doesn’t hurt that there are also plenty of oozing, drooling, sharp-toothed monsters and zombies and a host of gizmos and gadgets to hook readers and keep them cheering with every turn of the page. Holgate’s illustrations play an integral role in the novel’s success. They not only bring Brallier’s characters to life, but also add depth and detail to the story, making plain just exactly how big Rover is and giving the lie to Jack’s “killer driving.” The marriage of text and illustration serves as a perfect example of what an illustrated novel can and should be.
Classic action-packed, monster-fighting fun (. (Graphic/horror hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-670-01661-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
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