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HOW TO SELL YOUR FAMILY TO THE ALIENS

Name: HOW TO SELL YOUR FAMILY TO THE ALIENS
Author: Paul Noth
ISBN: 978-1-68119-657-2

by Paul Noth ; illustrated by Paul Noth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2018

Sequel likely…unless it gets sold to the aliens too, and that’d be no big loss.

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The Conklins are “a family of freaks” thanks to Grandma‘s experiments…can they keep Baby Lu safely on the “normal-kid” end of the spectrum?

Ten-year-old Happy Conklin Jr.’s dad is an inventor; most of his designs have flopped, but his “Buns of Abs” made the family millions…all of which Grandma took for herself. She also likes to test the inventions out on her grandchildren. “That’s One Handsome Baby” gave Hap Jr. a beard he has to shave daily. “Baby Master” gave Kayla the ability to see possible futures. Beth and Eliza were born fraternal twins, but “Perfect O’Specs” made them identical. And “The Doorganizer” linked light-fingered Alice to a pocket dimension where she stores everything she steals. While protecting their youngest sibling from Grandma’s predacious experimentation, Hap Jr. inadvertently sells his entire family to an alien reality show; can he get them back and avoid the FBI with the help of the school pet and his beard? Animator and cartoonist Noth’s debut children’s book is nowhere near as zany or as much fun as it wants to be. The setup drags, and readers will find the premise that Hap’s parents let Grandma do what she does awfully hard to believe. Line drawings and occasional comic strips throughout (final art not seen) depict the family as white and add some zip—but not enough to make this a purchase for any but the most generous of budgets.

Sequel likely…unless it gets sold to the aliens too, and that’d be no big loss. (Science fiction. 8-11)

Pub Date: April 3, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-68119-657-2

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO PROPERLY DISPOSE OF PLANET EARTH
by Paul Noth ; illustrated by Paul Noth

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975

ISBN: 0312369816

Page Count: 164

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
TUCK EVERLASTING
by Natalie Babbitt ; adapted by K. Woodman-Maynard ; illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOON OVER HIGH STREET
by Natalie Babbitt

- BOOK REVIEW
JACK PLANK TELLS TALES
by Natalie Babbitt

- SEEN & HEARD
Alexis Bledel To Read ‘Tuck Everlasting’ Audiobook

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THE PORCUPINE YEAR

From the Birchbark House series , Vol. 3

by Louise Erdrich ; illustrated by Louise Erdrich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2008

The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...

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This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.

Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.

The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and enlightening. (Historical fiction. 9-11)