Jason Steed, an 11-year-old Brit who appears to be the next James Bond in the making, returns for his second book (The Fledgling, 2010).
Jason continues his independent role as a secret asset for Scotland Yard, this time going up against the lethal Triads, who are bilking millions of pounds out of an unsuspecting British public. The Triads want to overthrow the Chinese government and take control of the largest nation in the world, just the first step toward eventual global domination. It’s up to Jason to infiltrate the Triads by befriending the criminal son of one of its leaders, which leads him down a path of murder and mayhem he may not be able to pull back from. When his own government betrays him, he’s on the run across Europe, dodging assassins from all sides while trying to save the life of a Chinese girl who could be the key to it all. While this sequel is jam-packed with one action sequence after another (to the detriment of clarity), it has lost the balance of its predecessor. Jason is asked to kill at will, taking out the innocent as well as the guilty with apparently no compunction. The novel takes place in 1974, and it is unlikely that today’s young readers will understand references to Mao or Chinese population control.
Breathless pace can't compensate for murky plotting and uneasy moral underpinnings. (Adventure. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4022-6429-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Two shelter cats take on a mysterious puss with weird powers who is terrorizing the feline community.
Hardly have timorous (and aptly named) Poop and her sophisticated buddy, Pasha, been brought home by their new “human beans” for a two-week trial than they are accosted by fiery-eyed Scaredy Cat, utterly trashing the kitchen with a click of his claws and, hissing that he’s in charge of the neighborhood, threatening that if they don’t act like proper cats—disdaining ordinary cat food and any summons (they are not dogs, after all), clawing the furniture instead of the scratching post, and showing like “cattitude”—it’ll be back to the shelter for them. Will Poop and Pasha prove to be fraidycats or flee to the cowed clowder of homeless cats hiding from the bully in the nearby woods? Nope, they are made of sterner stuff and resolutely set out to enlist feline allies in a “quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of purrs!” Cast into a gazillion very short chapters related by furry narrators Poop and Pasha, who are helpfully depicted in portrait vignettes by Herzog at each chapter’s head, the ensuing adventures test the defiant kitties’ courage (and, in some cases, attention spans) on the way to a spooky but poignant climax set, appropriately enough as it happens, in a pet graveyard.
A-mew-sing fare for readers who sometimes feel like fraidycats themselves. (Adventure. 9-11)Pub Date: March 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-49443-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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Who needs dragons when there are Terrible Lizards to be fought?
Having recklessly boasted to King Arthur and the court that he’d slain 40 dragons, Sir Erec can hardly refuse when Merlin offers him more challenging foes…and so it is that in no time (so to speak), Erec, with bookish Sir Hector, the silent and enigmatic Black Knight, and blustering Sir Bors with his thin but doughty squire, Mel, in tow, are hewing away at fearsome creatures sporting natural armor and weapons every bit as effective as knightly ones. Happily, while all the glorious mashing and bashing leads to awesome feats aplenty—who would suspect that a ravening T. Rex could be decked by a well-placed punch to the jaw?—when the dust settles neither bloodshed nor permanent injury has been dealt to either side. Better yet, not even the stunning revelation that two of the Three Stooges–style bumblers aren’t what they seem (“Anyone else here a girl?”) keeps the questers from developing into a well-knit team capable of repeatedly saving one another’s bacon. Phelan endows the all-white human cast with finely drawn, eloquently expressive faces but otherwise works in a loose, movement-filled style, pitting his clanking crew against an almost nonstop onslaught of toothy monsters in a monochrome mix of single scenes and occasional wordless sequential panels.
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268623-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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