Gripping monster mischief highlights an environmental problem but gives the protagonists little to do.
A seaside vacation turns into a monster attack when plastic ocean garbage undergoes a horrifying transformation in this second installment of an illustrated children’s book series.
Twelve-year-old, red-haired Pixie Van Dimple and her White family have planned a beach day. While off to get fish and chips for lunch, Pixie and her sister, Trixie, tell their father they’re going to use the bathroom—but they are actually heading to the candy store to buy sweets. As they walk back, they decide that since they can’t spot a trash bin, they’ll just dump their garbage in the ocean. It’s the last straw for the sea: Pixie and Trixie’s trash sets off a catastrophic transformation, and a garbage monster rises from the ocean. While the uncredited illustrations keep their bright colors and friendly cartoon feel, the situation described in the text is dire: “All around the girls, death and destruction ensued, the likes of it never witnessed before / On a scale of 1 to ten since you ask, this was spectacularly HARD CORE!” Leaving the sisters behind, the rhyming narrative amps up the worldwide chaos, eventually relating the use of space lasers to solve the plastic mess. Meanwhile, Pixie and Trixie miraculously survive in a huge beach hole dug by overzealous vacationers. Though the monster mayhem highlights the disaster of plastic in the ocean, the tale moves away from the sisters, who just cause the cataclysm and then persevere through no efforts of their own. McAllister uses rhyming phrases of different lengths, with frequent interjections that throw off the scansion. In addition to the complex vocabulary (synchronised quintet, sensitive dermis) that would challenge the picture-book crowd, the uneven font makes for a difficult reading experience. Strong, independent middle-grade readers are the likely target audience for the text, but the flat cartoon images, sanitized of the narrative’s violence, feel aimed at a much younger group. The London author’s comedic tone and action-packed story will appeal to budding environmentalists. But the clunky format and design place the tale between age categories.
Gripping monster mischief highlights an environmental problem but gives the protagonists little to do.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-398-41427-3
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Supernatural mystery meets generational drama with hopeful endings for all.
Eleven-year-old Frank must solve a supernatural mystery to save his new home.
As fifth grade comes to an end, Frank Fernández is looking forward to finally staying put in Alabama for a second year, as promised, after a childhood spent following his parents’ home renovation work all across the country. Frequent relocation has made Frank wary of forming friendships or making plans, but his hopes for more stability are temporarily dashed when his parents announce plans to renovate a lighthouse in the Florida Keys, near where his mother grew up and his father’s home country of Cuba. Papi promises this will be their last move, though: The lighthouse will be theirs. But from their first day on Spectacle Key, things seem to go wrong: Tensions rise between his parents, and Frank’s hopes of a forever home are under threat from seemingly supernatural forces. In order to put down roots, Frank and new ghostly friend Connie, a White girl with freckles, must discover what secrets the island is hiding, uncovering Frank’s own family roots along the way. Frank is a fan of horror—he names his new Great Dane puppy Mary Shelley. But though there is some mild peril to be found, rather than a ghostly thriller, this is an appealing, lightly spooky family drama with valuable lessons for those who would hide from a difficult past instead of confronting and healing generational trauma.
Supernatural mystery meets generational drama with hopeful endings for all. (Supernatural. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313481-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Delightfully weird and whimsical.
A 13-year-old girl and a colony of bats overcome losses in this middle-grade debut from Ready Player One author Cline.
After Opal B. Flats’ mother dies, she goes to live with Uncle Roscoe on the family farm in the Texas Hill Country. Her first night there, she has an alien encounter and subsequently discovers that she can communicate with the Mexican free-tailed bats living in a nearby cave. Their connection becomes essential when Opal, Uncle Roscoe, and the bats, through differing circumstances, are forced to find new homes. Opal and Uncle Roscoe, who read white, convince the bats to accompany them to Austin, “the only place in this whole stone-hearted state where weirdos are welcome!” If Opal and Uncle Roscoe have a slow start with fitting in, it’s even more difficult for a colony of over a million bats, especially when prejudice against them is being systematically reinforced by a greedy councilman whose pesticide business suffers when the bats start eating insects. The third-person narration unfolds in a homey style that’s colored with references to music and famous names that contribute to the sense of place, including Ann Richards, Selena, and Willie Nelson. Entries from Opal’s scrapbook are interspersed throughout. Readers will be relieved that, despite the hardships Opal and the bats must overcome, they ultimately prevail, succeeding in making friends and new homes for themselves in this celebratory primer on bats and belonging. Westell’s delicate, atmospheric illustrations greatly enhance the text.
Delightfully weird and whimsical. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780316460583
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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