A rip-roaring adventure exploring themes of friendship, loyalty, and bravery.
Eleven-year-old Syms Covington is the ship’s fiddler and naturalist Charles Darwin’s assistant as they voyage on the HMS Beagle.
Their journey takes them to the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin finds evidence that leads to his theory of natural selection. While all the characters in the story are based on real people, Galvin spins this historical foundation into an imagined adventure. Rowing back to the Beagle after collecting specimens, Darwin is tossed overboard by a sudden storm. Syms jumps in to save him but is swept away, washing up on another one of the Galápagos Islands, half drowned, with no supplies, and surrounded by empty ocean. Six adventure-filled days later, in which, among other things, Syms is befriended by an intelligent lizard he dubs Farthing and survives a volcanic eruption, he is rescued by the crew of the Beagle. But now Syms has a secret that he tells only Darwin—who doesn’t believe him—and as events transpire, Syms must choose between loyalty to his employer or his principles. Originally released in the United Kingdom as Darwin’s Dragons (2021) with a much more original and appealing cover that better reflects the contents, this terrific novel effectively uses history as a backdrop for both entertaining readers and posing questions about science and society. Characters are cued as White.
A rip-roaring adventure exploring themes of friendship, loyalty, and bravery. (author’s note, list of characters and places, author interview, timeline, reading list) (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-71444-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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