An often lively romp that concludes the adventures of Lucy and her ever-present phantom friend.
A ghost story for middle-grade readers about a young girl and an unlikely crew hunting for a centuries-old pirate’s treasure.
Retired teacher Mair (The Ghost of Mad Jack Halloran, 2013, etc.) delivers the final part of a trilogy chronicling the ghost pirate’s haunting of 14-year-old English girl Lucy Roberts. Mad Jack Halloran and his wife, Sarah, are stuck in limbo as ghosts because Jack’s vast fortune, left in Singapore a century ago, still needs to be returned to its owner. Jack trails his host, Lucy, to school, and soon she has to cover up for the blunders of a ghost who’s more dopey than dastardly. She enlists her uncle Harry, an inspector who previously conjured Jack’s ghost with an incantation, to help find Jack’s treasure. But Mair quickly complicates matters: Before, Jack only bothered Lucy and her family, but now everyday people can sometimes see and hear him. When Uncle Harry, Lucy and her snarky best friend, Alison, board a flight to Singapore, Jack is terrified: “One look out of the window and Jack went deathly pale (which is quite an achievement for a ghost).” Panic ensues, and Harry, Lucy and Alison get deported as soon as they land. Back in England, a coincidence leads the gang to Master Chang, overseer of Jack’s fortune in Singapore, who can settle their debts and finally release the ghost couple from their curse. At its best, this is a spirited tale that delights in the absurd. However, there are some inconsistencies in the story’s supernatural setup, especially regarding Jack and Sarah’s seemingly arbitrary visibility. The book’s target audience of tweens likely won’t mind some of the story’s obvious plot twists and heavy-handed foreshadowing, but its eye-rolling jokes and overemphasized angst sometimes slow the story down.
An often lively romp that concludes the adventures of Lucy and her ever-present phantom friend.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492977223
Page Count: 226
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A book with solid rhymes and appropriately challenging vocabulary for elementary school readers.
In Crighton’s (The Christmas Spryte Encounter: Picture with Santa, 2018, etc.) latest picture book, an elf gives a boy a second chance to be kind to his younger sibling—and believe in Christmas magic.
The unnamed narrator, a brown-haired, brown-skinned 9-year-old, is crushed when his friends say that Santa isn’t real. In his frustration, he feels like being mean and telling his much younger brother what he heard; then something—a bug?—zooms into his ear, and a small voice scolds him for almost ruining his brother’s Christmas. The “bug” is actually a flame-decaled ATV on skis with a tiny, helmeted driver: Abe, a pink-haired, female “spryte.” Her message—“When YOU’RE good to others, you feel good yourself”—is an excellent one. Her pep talk inspires the narrator to be a good brother and restores his belief in Santa. All the fuss over Abe’s gender seems unnecessary, but the core message about making choices to be kind rings true. The cartoonish illustrations don’t always match the text; Abe shows a business card that reads “Abigale ‘Abe’ J. Vroom,” but the narrator is later surprised that she’s female—and isn’t her middle initial supposed to be “T.”? However, the bright colors and cool ATV will appeal to kids.
A book with solid rhymes and appropriately challenging vocabulary for elementary school readers.Pub Date: June 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-947352-16-2
Page Count: 28
Publisher: AuthorCentrix, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A real winner featuring comic adventures with a serious undercurrent.
When the president of the United States is kidnapped by suburban extremists, it’s up to two 12-year-old girls to foil their plans in this humorous middle-grade novel.
Jade Rivera and Katerina “KK” Kaminsky have been friends almost since they were born in the same Phoenix hospital. Both have immigrant parents; Jade’s are from China and Mexico, and KK’s from Russia. On a camping trip to nearby Superstition Mountain, a federally protected wilderness, the two girls hike alone toward some ruins; Jade notices an ancient saguaro cactus that’s been illegally cut down, revealing a mine entrance. Could it be the legendary Lost Dutchman’s Mine, said to contain a fortune in gold? As the girls investigate, they happen upon the bound and gagged U.S. president, who had been giving a speech nearby. He’s been taken prisoner by members of a group called the Suburbanites for Expansion, whose ransom demand is to “develop this wilderness into a suburban paradise.” Now prisoners themselves, the girls formulate a plan: Jade will pretend to be a Native American who speaks little English, and KK will pretend to translate for her. The bumbling yet still dangerous SFE members know nothing about local plants and animals, but the girls draw on a trove of facts and advice that their well-informed grandmothers gave them and put them to good use. In her debut, Robinson writes a hilariously comic adventure that incorporates solid information about Arizona’s real-life Superstition Mountain, its ecology and Native American history, and wilderness survival. Her young heroines are resourceful, spirited, and clever, and their attention to their grandmothers’ knowledge and wisdom pays off in several important ways, helping them find nonpoisonous food to eat and treat a reptile bite. A warm sense of family connection and an appreciation of immigrants’ diverse cultures underlie the story. The villains are cartoonishly exaggerated, but they also reference real issues, such as the fact that once-protected wilderness areas are increasingly threatened by developers. Debut illustrator David’s black-and-white drawings enliven the story, capturing the girls’ resolve and the villains’ absurdity. (A free study guide is available via email.)
A real winner featuring comic adventures with a serious undercurrent.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 176
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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