Indelible, charismatic humans and creatures populate this colorful adventure.
In this middle-grade novel, teens at a prestigious academy inadvertently create knee-high humanoids that gleefully run amok on campus.
Thirteen-year-old Johnny “Spigs” Spignola’s mischief has gotten him kicked out of several schools. He plans a fresh start at the Aberdasher Academy of Science in New York, where he can study “wonderfully weird” science. Surprisingly, a renowned geneticist professor chooses Spigs—along with his roomie, Pablo “Peabo” Torres, and Theresa Ray “T-Ray” Rogers—as her research assistant. But when the academy shuts down the professor’s department, the trio preps an experiment to validate their prof’s research. This involves a 3-D bio-printer and a mysterious serum. Before they know it, the teens have six 20-inch creatures with sprouts of neon hair and a penchant for wreaking havoc. It gets worse: like Steven Spielberg’s gremlins, these “Creeples” ultimately transform into darker, much scarier versions and incessantly use their abilities to zap inanimate objects (e.g., gargoyles) to life. Spigs, Peabo, and T-Ray aren’t the only ones trying to capture the miniature hellions. A secret organization on campus wants them for its own sinister purposes. Pidgeon’s comedic tale is thoroughly entertaining. The teenagers, for one, are relentlessly cynical, even in danger: “This is NOT how I envisioned my freshman year playing out,” notes T-Ray. Still, Spigs and his friends are a dynamic team. Despite the constant humor, characters find themselves in unquestionable peril, especially during the final act, which amps up the action and the supernatural component. The ending hints at a sequel, which readers will certainly welcome. Bucci’s black-and-white artwork perfectly captures the quirky Creeples, who resemble trolls with impish grins and pot bellies.
Indelible, charismatic humans and creatures populate this colorful adventure.Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62634-775-5
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Ebulliently original.
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world?
Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving).
Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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