A delightful, hijinks-filled adventure that spotlights characters with different abilities.
A boy with autism helps discover a lost treasure and foil aspiring money printers in this third installment of a children’s book series.
Just finished with the third grade, Morris Flip overhears two men hatching a plan to create a summer camp on the Mortimer Potts estate, where a treasure in jewels is rumored to be hidden. Promising a big reward, they’ll enlist campers to search—but will actually split the valuables and skip town. While Morris is a master at mimicking sounds, he has autism and is nonverbal, so the plot remains secret. Eager elementary school campers include the Skinks sisters, Bluebell and Bonnie, and their friends Mitzi Mufflin, Melody Wu, and Hoops Russell. Some doubt Bonnie’s ability to navigate forest paths in her wheelchair or blind Mitzi’s ability to get around with her cane, but both make it work. Meanwhile, Morris overhears yet another plot. Mr. Skinks’ factory is testing a new press for printing government money. Two workers plan to print themselves a fortune while distracting everyone by faking a crisis at the summer camp. Various adults, including an inventor, a secret agent, a self-styled duke, and a hapless school principal, find themselves embroiled in the ensuing chaos while Morris becomes an unexpected hero. In this latest volume of her Potts-Abilities series, Cooper tells another very entertaining story, with many hilarious scenarios (such as a string of mishaps for the principal) and some nice twists. She shows the strengths of her diverse characters, who are funny and charming, while not discounting the challenges they face. Coincidence plays perhaps too large a role, but it’s all part of the fun. As in the previous installments, Santucci supplies lively monochrome illustrations that deftly capture the players’ varied personalities and appearances.
A delightful, hijinks-filled adventure that spotlights characters with different abilities.Pub Date: April 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-94-874797-4
Page Count: 118
Publisher: J2B Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It starts off innocently enough, with principal Walter Russ asking artist Florence Waters to sell him a drinking fountain for the Dry Creek Middle School. But art and bureaucracy are about as different as, well, flood and drought, and this book pits such opposites with hilarious results. Town villains Dee Eel (president of Dry Creek Water Company) and Sally Mander (chief executive of the Dry Creek Swimming Pool) absconded with the town's water supply, turning what used to be Spring Creek into Dry Creek. This all gets uncovered by ``Sam N.'s fifth-grade class,'' who is doing a project on the history of the town. What makes this tale an unequivocal delight is that it's told through letter, memos, newspaper clippings, school announcements, and inventive black-and-white drawings; even less-skilled readers will be drawn in by the element of perusing ``other people's mail'' to find out why Spring Creek went dry, and to decode the water-related names of the characters. Florence and her intriguing attitude and art win over the class, Sam, and even the stuffy principal—how she does it is part of a tale overflowing with imagination and fun. (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-380-97538-6
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
