by Lisa Harkrader ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2014
Readers will be greedy for the next adventure of Beanboy and the modest genius behind him.
When it comes to dodgeball, how can comic-book artist Tucker MacBean possibly compete with star athlete golden boy Wesley Banks?
Middle school realities come to life in Harkrader’s sequel to The Adventures of Beanboy (2012). No one takes the Art Club seriously, so Tucker and his friends engage in an increasingly desperate series of stratagems to prove its relevance. With the survival of their club on the line, the members of the Art Club try to harness their own creative power and work together as a team as the Artful Dodgers. But Tucker has an additional motive: He must redeem himself in the eyes of his younger brother, Beecher, who has his heart set on the helmet that is the prize of the dodgeball tournament. Needing more students for their less-than-athletic team, Tucker creates a new Beanboy superhero comic strip to recruit more Art Club members. But who is the unknown accomplice helping their campaign out? Harkrader’s newest underdog story has strong pacing and is filled with a memorable cast of adolescent eccentrics. Illustrations on notebook paper, bulletin-board mockups and tournament draws are neatly interspersed between scraps of real life and superhero-action cartoons. Even though the dodgeball tournament is a bit formulaic, the pursuit of individual creativity while recognizing the benefits of teamwork leads to an eminently satisfying conclusion.
Readers will be greedy for the next adventure of Beanboy and the modest genius behind him. (Fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-03904-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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by Dav Pilkey & illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2012
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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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey
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by Katherine Marsh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 2018
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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by Katherine Marsh ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy
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