A few missteps but a fun and suspenseful adventure.
In this debut children’s book, a girl helps a ghost who is trying to solve a mystery and save his wife’s mountain inn.
In the summer before fifth grade, Abigail “Abi” Wunder is returning from a camping trip in the Allegheny Mountains with her father. She’s looking forward to seeing her new baby brother and starting summer art camp, but a breakdown near the small community of Pine Hill forces them to stay temporarily at the reputedly haunted Hilltop Inn. They’ll be the last guests for Dee Rainey, the inn’s owner, who must move out. After her husband Herbert’s death, his second will deeding the property to her can’t be found. The first will left the inn to his brother, Norman, who’s tearing it down to build a shopping center—and blaming Dee for Herbert’s death. Abi keeps seeing visions of little white boxes in the sunshine, and that’s not all: She meets Herbert’s ghost, who wordlessly and urgently asks for her help. With the assistance of her new friend Jess Summers, Abi follows the spirit’s clues to track down the second will, hoping to save the inn from destruction and Dee from jail. In her series opener, Wilson takes the classic meddling-kids mystery genre and jazzes it up with supernatural elements. Abi is engaging, and her talent for drawing ties in well with the plot. A drawback is that the author tends to repetitively hammer the same points, such as the shopping center plan or a confusion over Herbert’s pills. And the ending involves an implausibly easy development. Tutti, who has illustrated books in several genres, contributes pencil sketches that are nicely shaded; the light-skinned characters have expressive faces but often stiff poses.
A few missteps but a fun and suspenseful adventure.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73513-100-9
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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