A computer game becomes a little too interactive for Jiggy McCue and buds in this all-out, innuendo-laden farce. Jiggy and neighbor Angie discover the down side of playing “Toilet of Life” on the Web when they wake the next morning with switched bodies. No need to imagine the possibilities for comedy, Lawrence (The Killer Underpants, p. 503, etc.) covers most of them, putting Jiggy-as-Angie through a range of indignities, including having to face spinach lasagna (Angie’s favorite), and the unwanted attentions of classmate Ralph “Eejit” Atkins. Angie-as-Jiggy gets not only a “free extra attachment” to cope with, but a new hormonal mix that amplifies the effects of her already-bad temper. With no opportunity for pranks or double entendres lost, this will have readers rolling on the floor from Jiggy’s opening discovery of a mountainous facial pimple (“ . . . the one bright spot of my day”) to the final twist, in which Angie and Jiggy recover their own corpora, only to discover that Angie’s stepbrother Pete has switched with aptly named Stallone the cat. Fans of Mary Rodgers’s Freaky Friday (1972) and Summer Switch (1982), as well as readers who find those classics a bit creaky in the joints, won’t be able to put this down. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46983-4
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
Hillenbrand takes license with the familiar song (the traditional words and music are reproduced at the end) to tell an enchanting story about baby animals picked up by the train and delivered to the children’s zoo. The full-color drawings are transportingly jolly, while the catchy refrain—“See the engine driver pull his little lever”—is certain to delight readers. Once the baby elephant, flamingo, panda, tiger, seal, and kangaroo are taken to the zoo by the train, the children—representing various ethnic backgrounds, and showing one small girl in a wheelchair—arrive. This is a happy book, filled with childhood exuberance. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201804-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
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