A few visual quibbles aside, an enjoyable romp that will leave readers salivating for the sequel.
When the queen of England calls, you’d better answer the phone.
Barnett takes his readers on a fun-filled ride across two continents in a mostly not-true adventure starring his childhood self. In this version, young child-of-the-1980s Mac is living in Castro Valley, California, when he receives a telephone call from the queen of England. The queen is missing some valuable treasure and needs Mac to retrieve it for her. While on the case, Mac travels across Europe in an attempt to find the thief and return the treasure to England. Barnett’s tone throughout the story is humorous, lighthearted, and a little glib, and the over-the-top story is sure to appeal to many readers. The references to the 1980s will appeal to adults who are reading aloud but will likely require explanation for the humor to truly hit home with children. (Yes, American blue jeans were a big deal in Russia in the 1980s!) Lowery’s illustrations, rendered in black, blue, and yellow, have an appropriately childlike look; due to both this stylistic choice and the book’s overall cheeky tone, it’s hard to tell whether the occasional inconsistency with the text and from illustration to illustration is intentional. There is no evident ethnic diversity in the background characters, a missed opportunity for some range in an otherwise white-only story.
A few visual quibbles aside, an enjoyable romp that will leave readers salivating for the sequel. (Historical thriller. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-14359-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unusual, fascinating, fast-paced.
A young boy tries to preserve a mysterious natural history museum.
Ben Makepeace has lived with his single mom in a basement apartment since his dad was lost at sea when Ben was 3. Receiving a cryptic invitation to “come now or come never” to the Gee Museum, Ben ignores his mother’s advice and bikes to the museum, which he finds closed. In a nearby cafe, Ben overhears Julian Pike, an unscrupulous real estate developer, and Tara Snow, a predatory museum director, plotting to ruin the Gee if its elderly owner refuses to sell to them. Returning to the Gee, Ben senses he’s been there before with his father and learns from exhibit animals—a shrew, a hippo, an owl, and a chameleon—how his future depends on preventing the Gee’s sale. When Pike and Snow take desperate measures, Ben unleashes dangerous “wild magic” within the museum and discovers his immutable connection to the Gee family. This supernatural tale of self-discovery in a setting of rare natural history specimens delivers a credible hero, folktale threads, memorable characters, and family bonds. Cooper’s worldbuilding seems endlessly inventive, the characters that inhabit the museum fully realized, up to and including the storytelling bees. Delicate, detailed pencil drawings track the drama and depict the principals as white.
Unusual, fascinating, fast-paced. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0448-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A soldier’s stubborn persistence in a sanitized but still interesting adventure.
The tale of a real-life pilot’s many attempts to escape from German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II.
Bill Ash, a poor, white Texas man, is so eager to fight Nazis that he can’t wait for America. Instead, more than a year before the United States joins the war, Bill goes to Canada and enlists in the Royal Air Force. He loves being a Spitfire pilot, but he’s soon shot down in France and, after some time in hiding, is sent to Stalag Luft III, a POW camp. Protected by the Geneva Conventions, the POWs are treated much better than Nazi prisoners in concentration camps or death camps (explained in one of several historical sidebars). That doesn’t mean Bill is content to stay safely imprisoned, however. Desperate to get back to the fighting, he unsuccessfully attempts to escape from imprisonment time and time again even as the Nazis punish him with time in “the cooler.” Some of his attempts are merely opportunistic, such as dashing from a work detail for freedom. Others are elaborate, such as a pleasantly gross tale of digging a tunnel underneath the latrines, complete with ingenious contraptions jury-rigged from Red Cross relief parcels. With the POWs’ (historically accurate) insulation from the war’s atrocities, this becomes a mostly low-stakes, exciting tale of wartime derring-do. Invented dialogue tips this story over into fiction.
A soldier’s stubborn persistence in a sanitized but still interesting adventure. (author’s note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-286036-1
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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