A bit repetitious but a fine, unusual story altogether.
Mutiny on their shipboard home separates mouse siblings.
Clarice and Charles Sebastian—the runt of the litter—have lived all their lives on the Carlotta. But after their mother is washed overboard, Clarice knows it’s up to her to take care of Charles Sebastian, especially since her mother’s last words were that she believed in her. During a mutiny, Clarice’s crate is thrown aboard the launch along with the castoff human captain and crew, but Charles Sebastian is left aboard with the mutineers. Clarice is devastated to lose her brother and horrified to discover that Special Lady, the ship’s cat who ate her sister, is in the launch as well. Dire need forces the cat and mouse to collaborate, as the launch runs out of food and water and people start dying. All the while, Clarice worries that Charles Sebastian won’t survive by himself, and she vows to find him again. Adventures follow, the narration going back and forth between the siblings. The relationship between Clarice and Special Lady is very well drawn, as is Charles Sebastian’s unusual friendship aboard the Carlotta with Benjelloun, a 12-year-old girl chained in the brig by the mutineers. However, Clarice’s repetitious rumination on her worry for Charles Sebastian and her mother’s final words eventually become threadbare prompts, blunting the theme’s impact. Human characters read as White. Final illustrations not seen.
A bit repetitious but a fine, unusual story altogether. (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-32337-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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