Ultimately, readers will feel this has all been done before. (Science fiction. 10-14)
A young adolescent boy discovers secret, amazing powers.
Thirteen-year-old Leo Lomax and his brother Hollis have barely had time to absorb the fact that their parents have been lost in a plane crash when they are swept away from the only home they’ve ever known. Their step-uncle Crane installs them in his combination resident/warehouse in a bleak area of Brooklyn. The warehouse is chock full of what Uncle Crane considers valuable antiquities and artifacts, but Leo finds one that can’t be either: a helmet that looks—and more importantly sounds—both painful and dangerous. Leo discovers that he is, in fact, a Sound Bender, someone who can actually hear the past just by touching an object. This leads him and his best friend Trevor on a quest halfway around the world to stop Crane from selling the helmet to the Russians and to free whoever has been trapped by this dastardly device. Although it has an interesting coming-of-age premise, this book is often confusing, with too many undeveloped threads and promising characters who rarely come to life. Leo’s first-person narration too often tells instead of shows ("It wasn't surprising with everything that I'd been through lately, but I couldn't believe I forgot my own birthday"), which contributes to the overall flatness of the story.
Ultimately, readers will feel this has all been done before. (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-19692-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers will be irresistibly drawn into Harry's world by GrandPre's comic illustrations and Rowling's expert combination of...
This sequel to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1998) brings back the doughty young wizard-in-training to face suspicious adults, hostile classmates, fretful ghosts, rambunctious spells, giant spiders, and even an avatar of Lord Voldemort, the evil sorcerer who killed his parents, while saving the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from a deadly, mysterious menace.
Ignoring a most peculiar warning, Harry kicks off his second year at Hogwarts after a dreadful summer with his hateful guardians, the Dursleys, and is instantly cast into a whirlwind of magical pranks and misadventures, culminating in a visit to the hidden cavern where his friend Ron's little sister Ginny lies, barely alive, in a trap set by his worst enemy. Surrounded by a grand mix of wise and inept faculty, sneering or loyal peers—plus an array of supernatural creatures including Nearly Headless Nick and a huge, serpentine basilisk—Harry steadily rises to every challenge, and though he plays but one match of the gloriously chaotic field game Quidditch, he does get in plenty of magic and a bit of swordplay on his way to becoming a hero again.
Readers will be irresistibly drawn into Harry's world by GrandPre's comic illustrations and Rowling's expert combination of broad boarding school farce and high fantasy. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: June 2, 1999
ISBN: 0-439-06486-4
Page Count: 341
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Despite the exciting premise, an unexceptional SF mystery.
Based on the serialized mystery podcast of the same name, this novel follows the adventures of 11-year-old Manu “Mars” Patel and his buddies as they attempt to find Aurora Gershowitz and Jonas Hopkins, two of their missing friends.
When Aurora inexplicably is incommunicado for five days, Mars worries that something is amiss. But when Jonas does not return from an emergency trip to the restroom, Mars and his pals (and fellow delinquents)—the strong JP McGowan, the extremely smart Randall “Toothpick” Lee, and the psychic Caddie Pratchett—realize that they’re the only ones who are willing to admit that children in the Puget Sound area are going missing. As they pursue the mystery, the friends figure out that children have actually been going missing from around the world, and they begin to suspect brilliant billionaire Oliver Pruitt (who is vaguely reminiscent of Elon Musk) is the culprit. Transcripts from Pruitt’s podcast are interspersed throughout the text, offering clues to ardent listener Mars. Better-developed characters and a tighter narrative—especially in the first half of the novel—would have made for a more memorable and gripping read, especially given the intriguing plot points. The cliffhanger ending might result in fans anxiously awaiting what comes next. Some characters’ identities bring diversity to the cast—Mars is Indian; nonbinary JP uses the pronouns they/them.
Despite the exciting premise, an unexceptional SF mystery. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0956-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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