This series just gets better.
Three young teens are hunted by a supernatural being and her minions in this sequel to Thirteens(2020).
Months after narrowly escaping Mr. January, friends Eleanor, Pip, and Otto pretend to lead normal lives. But, secretly, the three 13-year-olds are hard at work researching a way to break their magical curse for good. A new season brings new danger when mud creatures called mucks start mysteriously taking people from the town. Mr. January’s sister, Mrs. Prosper, worms her way into the town’s adult social circle through her multilevel marketing company, SixSeed. As the clock ticks toward the fast-approaching spring equinox and a too-coincidental SixSeed party, the teens seek outside help and race to come up with a plan. Eleanor and Pip find Jack—theJack from the stories in Thirteen Tales of the Graythat, so far, have all turned out to be true. But will Jack be enough to help them stop Mrs. Prosper? This novel effectively builds upon the previously introduced lore while simultaneously rewriting it as new characters take on (and brilliantly subvert) archetypal roles. With glowing mushrooms and muddy, woodsy settings, Marshall’s descriptions ooze eeriness with a Pacific Northwest flair. Each character, no matter how small, is sharply drawn. The story-within-a-story worldbuilding gets more complex and tightly intertwined with each new detail, and the smart commentary on beauty, femininity, and female power adds depth. Eleanor and Pip are White; Otto has light-brown skin.
This series just gets better. (Suspense. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11705-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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