An imaginative, fun adventure that’s just the beginning of a new amalgamated mythology.
Fantasy adventure spins between terror and comedy when teen siblings battle supernatural forces lurking in the forest and their computers.
When 15-year-old Logan and his 13-year-old sister Mindy wake up after a neighborhood picnic, they find themselves in a strange house near a beach and woods. Their first thoughts are practical—“Where are Mom and Dad?” Their next are childish; they tease each other about the funny pajamas they find themselves in. The pair soon discovers that while familiar kids live in nearby houses, there are no adults. In Lord of the Flies fashion, the youngsters split into teams of good guys and bad guys. Generous and brave Logan realizes that he can magically enter the computer in his bedroom, play games and then return. Things go horribly wrong when Kyle, the neighborhood bully, sets evil in motion after being tempted by the shadowy Silhouettes who visit at dawn and dusk. Animals in the nearby woods speak to each other about the children and some try to help. When Logan and Mindy become trapped inside the computer world, the sinister Lord Torrent of the Deep Shadows hatches a plot to gain a powerful staff hidden there by the mysterious Bill Purdy. Various pixel characters the siblings meet while inside the computer (including versions of their parents, an uncle, the bumbling comic Detective Danby, the hapless gambler Nick Roman and a fortune teller) help and hinder their struggle to get home to the “real” world. After a satisfying conclusion, the promise of more adventures looms when the newly forgiven Kyle muses that “deep down, he knew he had enjoyed being a bully….something in his brain triggered happiness when he inflicted grief on others.” This well-written tale combines two imaginary worlds popular with younger readers—fantasy and computer games. Plus, the tale isn’t really over; this is the first of an eight-book series. No need to say goodbye to Mindy and Logan, a young pair with the smarts and spunk to overcome whatever the future brings.
An imaginative, fun adventure that’s just the beginning of a new amalgamated mythology.Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615439259
Page Count: 298
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
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