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
Intricate, ambitious fantasy with a thoughtful, glowing heart.
A magical girl works to unearth her origins and seek her destiny.
Zuli, who’s held captive aboard a floating ship alongside her owl companion, Frowly, and her friend Orien, a green-skinned, winged creature, is about to be freed—or perhaps captured by someone else—while plotting to pursue her own noble quest. That journey, established in the saga’s previous volume, involves saving the souls of birds held in a purgatorial parallel world. This follow-up is full of political machinations and worldbuilding ideal for fantasy lovers. But the story is ultimately rooted in the personal: Zuli’s attempts to understand and contend with her connection to the fearful witch-queen Zara. Both seek to save the birds and preserve their world but by drastically different means. Kum’s elegant character studies visually recall a family-friendly iteration of the Saga space-opera comic book series. The backdrops are beautiful, but the constant conversation bustling the narrative along doesn’t always give these majesties space to breathe. Its most meaningful moments are those of eerie, ominous quiet: mystical visions of the past, apocalyptic red skies over a burnt-out city, and a glowing ghostly world. Zuli and Zara are Black humans, while most other characters appear in animal forms.
Intricate, ambitious fantasy with a thoughtful, glowing heart. (Graphic fantasy. 8-15)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780062995551
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
A trite, knock-off sequel to Jumanji (1981). The “Jumanji” box distracts Walter Budwing away from beating up on his little brother Danny, but it’s Danny who discovers the Zathura board inside—and in no time, Earth is far behind, a meteor has smashed through the roof, and a reptilian Zyborg pirate is crawling through the hole. Each throw of the dice brings an ominous new development, portrayed in grainy, penciled freeze frames featuring sculptured-looking figures in constricted, almost claustrophobic settings. The angles of view are, as always, wonderfully dramatic, but not only is much of the finer detail that contributed to Jumanji’s astonishing realism missing, the spectacular damage being done to the Budwings’ house as the game progresses is, by and large, only glimpsed around the picture edges. Naturally, having had his bacon repeatedly saved by his younger sibling’s quick thinking, once Walter falls through a black hole to a time preceding the game’s start, his attitude toward Danny undergoes a sudden, radical transformation. Van Allsburg’s imagination usually soars right along with his accomplished art—but here, both are just running in place. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-25396-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
