A fast-paced kids’ adventure novel with a solid message.
In this time-travel adventure novel, twin brothers take a trip into the past and learn profound lessons about loyalty, war and family.
Teenage twins Jake and Tom aren’t looking forward to their summer vacation. The family recently moved to the country, where Jake and Tom’s parents banned the teens’ once-ubiquitous electronics from the house. Without video games to occupy them, the twins take to wandering the countryside, where they run across a mysterious cave—and a stranger who silently beckons them inside. Suddenly Jake and Tom find themselves nearly 100 years in the past, on a Greek waterfront during World War I, wearing sailors’ uniforms neither of them has seen before, and helping to provision one of the first combat submarines. Jake’s memories of history lessons provide some context: They’re taking part in the famous Gallipoli campaign and are soon fighting to maintain the sub’s oxygen supply and dodge mines as they scuttle Turkish battleships. It turns out to be the same battle in which their great-great-grandfather fought. Based on the authors’ recollections of their grandfather’s war stories, this novel neatly recalls decades-old popular children’s adventure books. Its you-are-there war story evokes Edward Stratemeyer’s 1898 classic Under Dewey at Manila, while its problem-solving brothers are reminiscent of the Hardy Boys series. The book has a familiar kid-lit premise that readers will likely find fantastic but not unbelievable. Jake and Tom leap into action to protect their new friends in the submarine’s crew, and they learn life lessons, but the novel never takes on a preachy tone. The scenes in the cave drag a bit, but never enough to stop the narrative flow. Kids and adults will likely be able to disappear into this book for a few hours and feel as though they’ve been on an adventure themselves.
A fast-paced kids’ adventure novel with a solid message.Pub Date: March 25, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires.
Little Blue Truck feels, well, blue when he delivers valentine after valentine but receives nary a one.
His bed overflowing with cards, Blue sets out to deliver a yellow card with purple polka dots and a shiny purple heart to Hen, one with a shiny fuchsia heart to Pig, a big, shiny, red heart-shaped card to Horse, and so on. With each delivery there is an exchange of Beeps from Blue and the appropriate animal sounds from his friends, Blue’s Beeps always set in blue and the animal’s vocalization in a color that matches the card it receives. But as Blue heads home, his deliveries complete, his headlight eyes are sad and his front bumper droops ever so slightly. Blue is therefore surprised (but readers may not be) when he pulls into his garage to be greeted by all his friends with a shiny blue valentine just for him. In this, Blue’s seventh outing, it’s not just the sturdy protagonist that seems to be wilting. Schertle’s verse, usually reliable, stumbles more than once; stanzas such as “But Valentine’s Day / didn’t seem much fun / when he didn’t get cards / from anyone” will cause hitches during read-alouds. The illustrations, done by Joseph in the style of original series collaborator Jill McElmurry, are pleasant enough, but his compositions often feel stiff and forced.
Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-27244-1
Page Count: 20
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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