The Queen of Twilight, a nonexistent but in many ways familiar epic, is never the same after two teenagers squabbling over a copy fall into its pages. Bubble-headed teen-queen Heather Simms and class-brain Veronica Lopez find themselves reluctant allies as they’re pitched into a desperate struggle against said Queen, who’s out to plunge the world into eternal darkness. Veronica has already read the tale many times, but her calculations are thrown way off kilter almost immediately, as the newcomers manage to kill off the original protagonist, Princess Arabelle, and Heather is forced to assume the role. Aided by a wise old wizard (naturally), a stocky “Kiblar” elf with a pack full of delicious cookies, a libidinous talking squirrel and others, the pair traverse the Caves of Terror, the Lake of Woe and like locales on the way to various nail-chipping adventures—encountering along the way a wide array of foes, some gnarly, others totally hot. In the end the day is (literally) saved, Heather turns out to be brighter than she initially seems and the two part friends. Solidly entertaining, the outing is laced with teenspeak and common fantasy tropes but not played entirely for cheap laughs. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59514-074-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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