Thrills, violence, time/space questions, and some contemplation about colonization make for action on the thoughtful side.
Between Liam and the starliner carrying his sister lie baffling timestreams, inscrutable enemies, and vast stretches of cold, empty space.
Humans have departed Mars to colonize another planet. As Last Day on Mars (2017) ended, readers learned—but Liam didn’t—that Phoebe, Liam’s best friend and only fellow traveler in their small spacecraft (not counting their parents, injured and in stasis, and an intelligent, panda-faced bot), is a disguised alien. A horrifying prelude shows that Xela—Phoebe’s real name—came to Mars after a “hurtling wave of atomic fire” seared her whole planet, Telos, in six minutes. Of 6 billion Telphons, only 238 survived—and they want revenge on humans, who caused the cataclysm. When will Liam learn Xela’s identity? Where does her loyalty lie? She hides her lavender, black-bristled skin in order to resemble a white, human girl; Liam’s multiracial heritage, mentioned in Mars, is unmentioned here. Arcs of emotional tension braid through outer-space flying and fighting scenes, various aliens, jolts of puzzle-mystery time travel, and science/philosophy (“Now and then are constraints of three-dimensional beings”). Liam’s loneliness in “the deep black and silence of space” is offset by adventure: “It’s been fun, you know, when it hasn’t been terrifying.” Reveals are plentiful, including a closing one to beckon readers forward.
Thrills, violence, time/space questions, and some contemplation about colonization make for action on the thoughtful side. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-230674-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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