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 need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride.
Disaster overtakes a group of sixth graders on a leadership-building white-water rafting trip.
Deep in the Montana wilderness, a dam breaks, and the resultant rush sweeps away both counselors, the rafts, and nearly all the supplies, leaving five disparate preteens stranded in the wilderness far from where they were expected to be. Narrator Daniel is a mild White kid who’s resourceful and good at keeping the peace but given to worrying over his mentally ill father. Deke, also White, is a determined bully, unwilling to work with and relentlessly taunting the others, especially Mia, a Latina, who is a natural leader with a plan. Tony, another White boy, is something of a friendly follower and, unfortunately, attaches himself to Deke while Imani, a reserved African American girl, initially keeps her distance. After the disaster, Deke steals the backpack with the remaining food and runs off with Tony, and the other three resolve to do whatever it takes to get it back, eventually having to confront the dangerous bully. The characters come from a variety of backgrounds but are fairly broadly drawn; still, their breathlessly perilous situation keeps the tale moving briskly forward, with one threatening situation after another believably confronting them. As he did with Wildfire (2019), Newbery Honoree Philbrick has crafted another action tale for young readers that’s impossible to put down.
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64727-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Action-packed and entertaining.
Zane’s crew of godborns grows—just in time for all their parents to go missing…in 1987.
In this third series entry, readers are reintroduced to Mexican American, half-human/half-god Zane Obispo, son of the Maya god Hurakan. Zane’s in search of the last godborn so he can bring all 64 of them together for training at the Shaman Institute of Higher-Order Magic. But this number actually turns out to be 65 when he meets twins Adrik and Alana. They are rightly suspicious of Zane’s wild tale until they are faced with Ixtab, queen of the underworld, and sentient calendar K’iin and find out most of the gods have been kidnapped and sent away to the past. Now it’s up to the godborns to save them. Time travel isn’t easy, though: It requires a shadow crosser, or magician, to hold the time thread and ensure that the travelers have a link back to the present—and that person faces suffering permanent brain damage. Maya gods are nothing if not dramatic. As in the previous two volumes, the plot is busy and frantic, though the engaging prose and humanlike, melodramatic gods are fun to meet again, and the glossary may help readers keep track of which god is which. The plot may give readers whiplash, but if all three volumes are read in quick succession, they will likely have an easier time keeping track of the twists and turns.
Action-packed and entertaining. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-05277-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents/Disney
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020
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