This well-paced story will keep the attention of even reluctant readers with its commitment to accurately chronicling the...
This series' first entry introduces a courageous time-traveling golden retriever on the Oregon Trail.
While digging for a bone in his backyard, Ranger discovers a first-aid kit. Mysteriously imbued with time-travel properties, the kit sends Ranger back in time to Independence, Missouri—a starting point for the Oregon Trail—where Sam Abbott is searching for his little sister. Though he loves chasing squirrels too much to pass his search-and-rescue training, Ranger, who can understand human speech, doesn’t pay distractions any mind as he follows his training to find little Amelia. His heroics earn him a place with the Abbott family on their journey, and he proves himself both remarkable and useful through many crises (like a buffalo stampede, sickness and river rapids). Though Ranger grows to love the Abbotts, he’s constantly on the lookout and longing for Luke, his boy in the future. In the end, the kit takes Ranger back home, though its nature remains an enigma. The third-person narration expertly balances Ranger’s thoughts between the appropriately doglike (squirrels! bacon!) and the heroic (Ranger’s drive to find and protect).
This well-paced story will keep the attention of even reluctant readers with its commitment to accurately chronicling the excitement and danger of the Oregon Trail. Whom will Ranger save next? (Adventure. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-63915-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)
The town of Sunnyview got a little bit safer when 8-year-old Eugene McGillicudy moved in.
Just like his comic-book mentor, Super Dude, Eugene, aka Captain Awesome, is on a one-man mission is to save the world from supervillains, like the nefarious “Queen Stinkypants from Planet Baby.” Just as Eugene suspected, plenty of new supervillains await him at Sunnyview Elementary. Are Meredith Mooney and the mind-reading Ms. Beasley secretly working together to try and force Eugene to reveal his secret identity? Will Principal Brick Foot succeed in throwing Captain Awesome into the “Dungeon of Detention?” Fortunately, Eugene isn’t forced to go it alone. Charlie Thomas Jones, fellow comic-book lover and Super Dude fan, stands ready and willing to help. When the class hamster goes missing, Captain Awesome must don his cape and, with the help of his new best friend, ride to the rescue. Kirby’s funny and engaging third-person narration and O’Connor’s hilarious illustrations make the book easily accessible and enormously appealing, particularly to readers who have recently graduated to chapter books. But it is the quirky, mischievous Eugene that really makes this book special. His energy and humor are contagious, and his dogged commitment to his superhero alter ego is enough to make anyone a believer.
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4090-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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