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A PENGUIN ROLLING DOWN A HILL

Name: A PENGUIN ROLLING DOWN A HILL
Author: Kevin Tranter
ISBN: 978-1-5246-3771-2

by Kevin Tranter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 11, 2016

While this fantasy adventure tale would benefit from more characterization and tension, it still delivers a fun read.

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A scrappy group attempts to overthrow an evil dream world ruler in this debut novel.

Melvin and Lorraine, two “sensible” and levelheaded teens, adjust quickly when they fall asleep in their beds and awaken in a white room guarded by two quarrelsome giants. The giants explain that they are in Limbo, the dimension in which dreams are created. Only Dream Ambassadors can summon individuals from the physical world, and they seem to have been called by Mr. Good, an Ambassador who produces sweet dreams and has recently lost his home, the Palace of Somnium, to the nightmare-generating Vile. Lorraine and Melvin set off to aid Mr. Good but are captured by Vile and his meek, riddle-obsessed minion Terrence. The two teens escape, thanks to the negligence of Vile’s grunting “muscular guards,” and eventually encounter Mr. Good, the Wizard Mugwump (who, due to a verbal tic, regularly says “salmon” in place of the word he means), and other summoned humans and denizens of Limbo who hope to restore Mr. Good to his rightful home. They have limited time to act: Vile, tormented by a mysterious voice in his head, plans a master nightmare performance that will plummet every human into endless bad dreams. Tranter begins on a definitively zany note and never backs down, at times costing characterization and stakes. Vile and his pack seem far too humorously incompetent to present serious danger, and Lorraine and Melvin remain undeveloped despite their central status. But many of the side characters are wonderful to get to know, such as Keith, a Boy Scout whose eager offers to help are never as desired as he hopes, and Vince, an Elvis-obsessed human who’s been trapped in Limbo for epochs. Wacky back-and-forths between characters sometimes go on far too long, and not all of the wall-to-wall gags and slapstick land, but amusing moments can certainly be found (as when Vile, constantly mixing up his dream actors, simply calls them all “Norman”).

While this fantasy adventure tale would benefit from more characterization and tension, it still delivers a fun read.

Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3771-2

Page Count: 412

Publisher: AuthorHouseUK

Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

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GOING SOLO

by Roald Dahl illustrated by Quentin Blake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1986

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A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986

ISBN: 0142413836

Page Count: 209

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
QUENTIN BLAKE'S FANTASTIC JOURNEYS
by Quentin Blake ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

- BOOK REVIEW
<i>MONA LISA</i> AND THE OTHERS
by Alice Harman ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

- BOOK REVIEW
ROALD DAHL SHAPES
developed by Roald Dahl ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

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MONSTER

by Walter Dean Myers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1999

The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...

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In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.

Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.

The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)