A promising start for a new series.
This portal fantasy begins with a door to nowhere.
One uneventful day, a pipe bursts in Apartment 2B, where Oswald “Ozzie” Sparks lives with practical, orderly Aunt Temperance while his high-powered parents travel the world. Imaginative, lonely Ozzie sets off in search of creepy Mr. Crudge, the building’s caretaker, and stumbles upon a mysterious door. This door has “an energy about it,” and for some reason Aunt Temperance seems to have a key to it. A few days later, Ozzie arrives home to find a blue, curly-eared, winged, tigerlike creature called a skyger waiting for him. Telling Ozzie his name is Tug, he invites the boy to Zoone, the heart of the multiverse, where the Convention of Wizardry is about to commence and the secret of this world between worlds awaits. Using Aunt Temperance’s key, Ozzie enters, but the door explodes, leaving Ozzie with no way home. Though he’ll have guidance from Lady Zoone, the steward, Ozzie will need to discover the secret on his own. He’ll also find out he’s much braver than he thinks over the course of this rather contemplative adventure. Like many a magical world before it, Zoone is full of colorful characters. Even Aunt Temperance wasn’t always so “mundane,” as Ozzie learns. She appears to suffer from depression, which Ozzie understands as sickness. Tug has a disability among those of his kind: His wings don’t work. Capt. Cho, head of Zoone security, has brown skin; assume whiteness for other humans.
A promising start for a new series. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-284526-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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