Sci-fi seekers lured by the title might be bored, but lovers of historical fiction will be at home. (Historical science...
Can the truth about the Martian invasion of Roswell heal Mylo’s broken heart?
One year, one month, and three days ago, 11-year-old Mylo’s brave older brother, Obie, died. Mylo still feels his loss and his absence keenly, to the point where he won’t let his best friend, Dibs, use Obie’s bed when he sleeps over, insisting that they share his twin. One hot July night in 1947, something lights up the sky. Dibs is certain it’s Martians come to suck out their brains. Mylo’s not convinced until a voice whispers “Help” inside his head. The two friends venture into the desert and find wreckage…but it’s not until they return with friends that they find a saucer and someone who needs help. Mylo vows to help even if the government gets in the way. Following her debut, Lemons (2017), Savage again explores loss and its effect on individuals and families. This mostly realistic tale teeters on the precipice of maudlin and drags a bit—and no military base was ever so easy to break into (nor any American military so deferential to its former members and their children)—but patient readers, especially those who have experienced loss themselves, will identify with strong, good, self-doubting Mylo, who narrates his sometimes-funny story and often addresses his departed brother. The story takes place in Corona, New Mexico, where people of Latinx heritage, including biracial Mylo (his mother is Latinx and his father is white), predominate.
Sci-fi seekers lured by the title might be bored, but lovers of historical fiction will be at home. (Historical science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0016-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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