When “Plain Jane” Emma tries to thwart her evil uncle’s scheme to take over a master baker’s shop, a lot of slurping, spewing and brewing ensue.
Mr. and Mrs. Burblee are beautiful, thin and perfect in every way except for one annoying detail: their ordinary daughter. They send Emma to gross Uncle Simon for the summer, but he treats her worse than a servant. She overhears a plot between him and his villainous pal, Maximus Beedy (dressed all in white), to coerce Mr. Crackle, a Supreme-Extreme Master Baker, into making them a magical elixir that will turn any food instantly delicious. They prick him with joobajooba poison, which will rob him of his senses one by one, unless he complies. But Mr. Crackle has a few tricks up his toque, as readers learn when he, Emma and her friend Albie descend into the magic flour barrel to a secret, underground spice shop to round up the ingredients. Will they be able to make the elixir by the deadline? To the list of goofy ingredients (Burberry beans, whingbuzzit legs, biddle hegs, fribs, shick shack shree, etc.) add heaps of preciosity and blend with an overly melodramatic plot—the result is tasteless when compared to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the author of which Hashimoto clearly seeks to emulate. Emma is a tough cookie, but this recipe for a fun fantasy falls as flat as a collapsed soufflé. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86822-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
Maya never expected to recover from the death of her best friend Stephanie, but accidentally bonding with Rimi completely...
An everyday seventh grader has a secret alien best friend and a house full of magic-wielding mentors next-door.
Maya never expected to recover from the death of her best friend Stephanie, but accidentally bonding with Rimi completely changed her life (Thresholds, 2010). Rimi is sissimi, a young alien who communicates telepathically with Maya and hides as Maya's shadow—if a shadow could eat, move objects and draw. Not only is Rimi a wonderful new best friend, she's introduced Maya to her neighbors in Janus House, where Maya is now learning to be a magical practitioner so that she can one day to travel to alien worlds. Maya’s adventures are sheer, joyful middle-school–meets-magic. She's concerned about making friends at school, her art and piano lessons, meeting aliens after classes, the embarrassment when Rimi telekinetically makes her burp, having the best Halloween costume and a mean classmate who also has a bonded sissimi. Though Maya is often confused by the plethora of alien concepts she's expected to understand (Rimi constantly uses undefined words), she finds her new responsibilities and friendships thrilling. The discombobulated mystery of who the bad guys are (presumably to be discovered later in the series) is almost incidental to the daily adventures of an ordinary girl with a shadow from another planet.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01283-1
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
Three episodes—two of which were originally published in English separately in 2003—feature the diminutive, grey-skinned bloodsucker, his human friend Michael and a haunted-houseful of spectacularly lurid ghouls and creepies. In the first, lonely Little Vampire meets Michael after going to his school at night, sitting at his desk and doing his homework. In the second Michael receives kung fu lessons from an eldritch instructor in hopes of ridding himself of a bully. The third, titled “The Canine Defenders Club,” has the two buddies, with help from Little Vampire’s gruff, scarlet pooch Phantomato, breaking into a cosmetics-testing laboratory to rescue three captive dogs. All three tales progress in small, brightly colored panels packed with brisk action, sight gags and dialogue in miniscule type. Fans of Emmanuel Guibert’s Sardine in Outer Space series, which is illustrated by Sfar, will find his solo outings just as appealingly off-the-wall. Libraries that bought the first two chapters (which were issued by a different publisher) will need this as a value-added replacement. (Graphic novel. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59643-233-8
Page Count: 92
Publisher: First Second/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
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