A fun, inventive, and mostly well-written middle-grade novel.
This mashup of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz follows a desperate girl’s escapades.
Young Sophie Mae Bastrop is in a bad way. It’s the middle of not just the Depression, but also the Dust Bowl. After her beloved Grandma Hattie dies, she tries to survive alone on the farm in Drycrop, Oklahoma. A mysterious box arrives, and it transports her to Gardenia, the estate of her late great-aunt in Evenland, Minnesota. Gardenia is a peculiar place under the sway of the alchemist George the Great Cain. Here, magic rules. Thanks to George’s potions, eating is unnecessary, invisibility is commonly practiced, and extraordinary creatures abound, like Mary Louise, the talking elephant, and Leggy, the giraffe. There is also Ernest Wade, a shadowy figure who used to be George’s assistant but is now banished from Gardenia. Something is not right, but who’s the bad guy? George or Ernest? Of course it eventually gets sorted out. Bell is clearly enjoying herself, which is always good. And Sophie Mae is appropriately spirited. One theme that runs through the book is her need for a place to belong, for a real family. Things move along quickly, and there are amusing effects, such as an ex–circus bear that can fly and other thaumaturgies. It should be pointed out that even the putative villains are more misguided than evil (Ernest was not a very good alchemist; he cut corners), an important lesson. There is a Hooverville near Gardenia, and both George and Ernest want to help the unfortunates living there. Cultural touchstones pop up regularly. For example, there is a place in the Gardenia mansion that is very much like Star Trek’s Holodeck, and when Ernest becomes righteously enraged, he resembles, appropriately, the Hulk. Bell deploys delightfully strange verb choices, almost Tom Swift–ian (“ ‘I beg your pardon,’ she flustered”). The subtitle is A Sophie Mae Adventure, so presumably this bodes for more in the series, one that will be welcomed by fans of the fantastic.
A fun, inventive, and mostly well-written middle-grade novel. (acknowledgments)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73590-720-8
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Two Turkey Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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