This series finale wraps up most of its loose ends in a satisfying bow, leaving just enough room for imaginative...
Orpheus and Eurydice as incipient Cold War spies.
In the third and final adventure in Meloy’s Apothecary series, “the universe is doing its work, and we are only part of it….We are the vessel through which it flows.” Benjamin Burrows, now orphaned, lives with Janie Scott and her parents. He and Janie are going through the motions of high school life in 1955 Ann Arbor, but grief and depression make him sympathetically remote. When Benjamin confides that he has contacted his father in the After-Room (a vague purgatorial space between the natural and supernatural realms), Janie is both panicked and intrigued. As they pursue answers about the afterlife, the universe reunites the pair with many of their old friends (Vili, Pip, Jin Lo) in the service of preventing another nuclear disaster. Meanwhile, the teenagers and their allies find themselves alternately pursued by the carabinieri, the Mafia, the United States Navy, Chinese pirates, and their fatal nemesis, Danby. As with the previous novel in the series, The Apprentices (2013), Meloy excels at bringing readers quickly up to speed on the characters’ histories, and she achingly conveys the razor-thin line between the elation and despair of first love.
This series finale wraps up most of its loose ends in a satisfying bow, leaving just enough room for imaginative middle-grade readers and teens to conjure up their own futures for Janie and Benjamin. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17544-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series.
An orphaned street urchin is recruited into an elite school for thieves.
In an alternate world where France is the dominant world power, 13-year-old Tom Morgan has had to scrimp, starve, and steal on the streets of London to survive. Born into a workhouse, he doesn’t know anything about his father, while his mother may have been from North Africa. One thing he does know is the sort of cruelty that awaits the poor who are sent to the workhouse, and he’s determined not to go back. But when their camp is raided and his friends are captured by workhouse agents, the only thing Tom can think of is how to get them out. Enter the Corsair, a cunning and mysterious man with a proposition: He wants to recruit Tom into Beaufort’s School for Deceptive Arts. From nabbing treasures to forging identity papers, Beaufort’s promises to teach Tom everything he needs to know to become a Shadow Thief and a member of the Shadow League, the secret global organization that helps keep the world’s political power in balance. But Beaufort’s has its own rules and secrets, and if Tom is to survive long enough to help his friends, he’ll need to figure them out quickly. Clever and gripping, this fast-paced boarding school story will appeal to fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society and Spy School series.
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665982283
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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
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