A mixed bag of silliness and magic that will appeal to those who are hooked by the title—and fall short for readers who roll...
A modern prankster meets his match when a medieval prankster-turned-genie is lodged in his nose in this humor-of-the-gross series starter.
Prince Loogar considers himself the prince of pranks. He’s also the son of the king of Garoth, an invented kingdom in a medieval England where ogres run rampant and wizards can turn enemies into genies. After hoaxing the castle wizard, Loogar is captured in a tiny bead, discovered around 800 years later by Charlie, who collects it for a craft project. Charlie is a good-natured mischief-maker whose father enjoys trading jokes with him—but when one of Charlie’s teachers decides to quit, Charlie and his friends worry their hijinks could have been the cause. After getting Prince Loogar lodged in his nose, Charlie has a malevolent genie complicating his tricks—until Loogar learns that only good deeds will free him from his curse and possibly return him to his own time. The silly conceits of Prince Loogar’s castle leave no doubt that there’s scant resemblance between his England and the historical one, but Charlie feels like an authentic grade schooler. The booger jokes, the silly shenanigans and the sorry state of Loogar living in Charlie’s nose are sure to win over the Captain Underpants crowd. The illustrations by Herholz and Castle are reminiscent of Quentin Blake’s illustrations for Roald Dahl’s classic novels. The plot is slight, and the abrupt ending—in which Loogar learns he must do more than one good deed to be free of his curse—feels like a stopping point rather than a conclusion, even of a first installation. What remains is a lightweight tale of slapstick comedy with slight characters and an obvious lesson about being considerate of other people. With its accessible vocabulary and gross-out humor, the slim volume has the potential to be a hit with reluctant readers, especially boys.
A mixed bag of silliness and magic that will appeal to those who are hooked by the title—and fall short for readers who roll their eyes at booger jokes.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1479272013
Page Count: 100
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartwarming story about facing fears and acceptance.
A boy with wings learns to be himself and inspires others like him to soar, too.
Norman, a “perfectly normal” boy, never dreamed he might grow wings. Afraid of what his parents might say, he hides his new wings under a big, stuffy coat. Although the coat hides his wings from the world, Norman no longer finds joy in bathtime, playing at the park, swimming, or birthday parties. With the gentle encouragement of his parents, who see his sadness, Norman finds the courage to come out of hiding and soar. Percival (The Magic Looking Glass, 2017, etc.) depicts Norman with light skin and dark hair. Black-and-white illustrations show his father with dark skin and hair and his mother as white. The contrast of black-and-white illustrations with splashes of bright color complements the story’s theme. While Norman tries to be “normal,” the world and people around him look black and gray, but his coat stands out in yellow. Birds pop from the page in pink, green, and blue, emphasizing the joy and beauty of flying free. The final spread, full of bright color and multiracial children in flight, sets the mood for Norman’s realization on the last page that there is “no such thing as perfectly normal,” but he can be “perfectly Norman.”
A heartwarming story about facing fears and acceptance. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68119-785-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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