A quietly thrilling adventure.
Within an enchanted forest, there is a vast iron fence “adorned with spikes.” Within that fence lies the Brassmere Academy for the Extraordinary. Within the school’s walls, safe from the dangerous outside world, live four children who dream in unison.
Plum, Artem, Vien, and Gwendle are best friends who share everything—even their dreams. They’ve been at the school since they were babies, but there’s a lot they don’t know. Why were they chosen to attend the school? What do the men and women in pink suits who take blood samples and ask a lot of questions do with the information they collect? The four have always had control over their dreams, but lately, they’ve begun experiencing unnerving deviations; they aren’t as fully in control as they thought. Then Artem disappears from the waking world and appears to Plum in a dream. “You have to leave Brassmere,” he warns. Plum ventures outside the school’s protection and soon learns that their lives are a lie and that the truth is the insidious stuff of nightmares. The third-person narration is firmly entrenched in Plum’s perspective, but her friends are fully developed and not merely supports. There are a few minor plot holes, but readers will likely overlook them and focus on the action and mystery. The book assumes a white default.
A quietly thrilling adventure. (Fantasy. 8-13)Pub Date: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68119-447-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Full of puzzles to think about, puns to groan at and references to children’s book titles, this solid, tightly plotted read...
When a lock-in becomes a reality game, 12-year-old Kyle Keeley and his friends use library resources to find their way out of Alexandriaville’s new public library.
The author of numerous mysteries for children and adults turns his hand to a puzzle adventure with great success. Starting with the premise that billionaire game-maker Luigi Lemoncello has donated a fortune to building a library in a town that went without for 12 years, Grabenstein cleverly uses the tools of board and video games—hints and tricks and escape hatches—to enhance this intricate and suspenseful story. Twelve 12-year-old winners of an essay contest get to be the first to see the new facility and, as a bonus, to play his new escape game. Lemoncello’s gratitude to the library of his childhood extends to providing a helpful holographic image of his 1968 librarian, but his modern version also includes changing video screens, touch-screen computers in the reading desks and an Electronic Learning Center as well as floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stretching up three stories. Although the characters, from gamer Kyle to schemer Charles Chiltington, are lightly developed, the benefits of pooling strengths to work together are clear.
Full of puzzles to think about, puns to groan at and references to children’s book titles, this solid, tightly plotted read is a winner for readers and game-players alike. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87089-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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