A solid choice for readers who like history with their mystery.
Time-traveling archenemies must work together to save their school.
In a world where some people are born with a gene that allows them to slide in and out of time—to Glitch—children with that DNA are educated at a special school run by the government. Interfering with the past is against the law, and anyone who travels back in time to manipulate history is labeled a Butterfly and arrested. Glitchers are trained to stop Butterflies, and Regan Fitz, whose mom is commander in chief of the U.S. branch of Glitch Academy, has great intuition when it comes to spotting people intent on altering the timeline. She is, however, at the bottom of her class because school is a struggle. Her nemesis is Elliot Mason, who is at the top of the class, but he lacks the gut instincts needed to be an excellent Glitcher. Character development takes a back seat to premise and plot here. Regan and Elliot fight constantly and are in the middle of an epic blowup when a Cocoon—an object planted by a Butterfly to effect a change—in Regan’s handwriting appears. The pair must work together to figure out its clues and succeed in their mission, all while avoiding detection and being arrested as Butterflies. The final time-travel sequences are many and dizzying, but the excellent pacing of the race to save the day overshadows this mechanics issue. Elliot appears black and Regan is white.
A solid choice for readers who like history with their mystery. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289435-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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