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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Taking a page from Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (1990), Kehret (I’m Not Who You Think I Am, p. 223, etc.) pens a similar story of a girl who goes to sea. Determined not to be separated from her seriously ill mother, Emma, 12, embarks on a plan that results in the adventure of a lifetime. Sent to live with Aunt Martha and her arrogant son, Odolf, Emma carefully plots her escape. Disguising herself in her cousin’s used clothes, she sneaks out while the household slumbers and stows away on what she believes to be a ship carrying her parents from England to the warmer climate of France. Instead, the ship is the evil, ill-fated Black Lightning, under the command of the notorious Captain Beacon. Emma finds herself sharing quarters with a crew of filthy, surly, dangerous men. When a fierce storm swamps the ship, Emma desperately seizes her chance to escape, drifting for several days and nights aboard a hatch cover and finally carried to land somewhere on the coast of Africa. Hungry, thirsty, and alone, Emma faces the daunting prospect of slow starvation, but survives due to a relationship she builds with a band of chimpanzees. This page-turning adventure story shows evidence of solid research and experienced plotting—the pacing is breathless. Kehret paints a starkly realistic portrait, complete with sounds and smells of the difficult and unpleasant life aboard ship. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-03416-2
Page Count: 138
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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