The disappointing triumph of superficial style over substance.
A century apart, two preteens magically swap places and tackle an unsolved mystery: the theft of a painting by impressionist Mary Cassatt from a Newport, Rhode Island, mansion.
For Maggie, niece of the coal tycoon who built The Elms, it’s 1905. Twenty-first-century Hannah lives at The Elms, now a museum, with her caretaker father. She’s fascinated by the Gilded Age and the mystery of how Maggie’s portrait was stolen before it could be unveiled. When each suffers a fall, they discover they’ve switched bodies and can talk to each other through the mirror. Hannah, who knows the house and its history, seizes this chance to investigate the art heist. Learning of her portrait’s theft—due to occur that night—Maggie wants to help. While Hannah recruits Jonah, the kitchen boy who’ll be accused of the theft, Maggie studies Hannah’s iPhone and tries to learn soccer on the fly. Narrating alternate chapters, the girls discover that finding the culprit fails to return each to her time. First-person, present-tense narration works against the historical setting, and Hannah’s loud voice, crammed with pop-culture references to the Kardashians, hashtags, and port-a-potties, overwhelms any Gilded Age ambiance. Played for laughs, the 1905 denizens’ perplexity at her jargon soon palls. Though less tiresome, Maggie’s no more believable. Physical descriptions of characters are few, and race is never mentioned, but characters appear white, like The Elms’ historical occupants, Maggie’s family. Girl power and women’s progress toward equality are celebrated mainly in internal narration.
The disappointing triumph of superficial style over substance. (authors’ notes, bibliography) (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7871-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
More escapades are promised in this improbable but satisfying series starter
A smart kid foils big-time thieves in the nation’s capital—and joins the FBI.
Using a method he invented called the Theory of All Small Things, white seventh-grader Florian Bates solves mysteries by piecing together seemingly trivial clues in this engaging, humorous, but not always logical caper. When Florian easily helps the FBI recover three masterpieces stolen from the National Gallery of Art, the dazzled feds supply him with an alias and train him at Quantico. Collaborating with his African-American best friend, superbright, athletic Margaret, Florian finds that even with TOAST, sleuthing gets dangerous when the pair, working undercover, come up against a European crime syndicate—and another spectacular art heist in the form of a forgery substituted for an iconic Monet. Exciting adventures ensue, and clues accumulate until the culprit is revealed and the genuine painting located. Missteps intrude, though: a few lapses in logic may leave readers puzzled; some clues seem contrived; and a subplot involving Florian’s discovery of the startling identity of adopted Margaret’s biological father falls flat. The solution is also a letdown: the thief is a minor figure, and the means by which the painting was stolen and the forgery set in its place aren’t explained. The real draws here are the two resourceful leads’ solid, realistic friendship, bolstered by snappy dialogue, brisk pacing, and well-crafted ancillary characters—not to mention behind-the-scenes glimpses of the FBI.
More escapades are promised in this improbable but satisfying series starter . (Mystery. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3630-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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