by Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell & illustrated by Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 14, 2007
The title, an anemic volcano dubbed “Mount Boom” and a late bit of verse are the only connections to Tolkien in this long, lame farce. Summoned away from this world into a land of gossipy trees and miasmic stenches by Randalf the Wise, young Joe runs into farting pigs, greasily entrepreneurial goblins, huge but infantile trolls, a maternal dragon, mighty-thewed Brenda the Warrior Princess, crazed and giggling sorcerer Doctor Cuddles and like characters in his persistent quest to get home. As usual with this pair, Riddell’s many expert ink drawings both provide the main draw and are so small that the intricate details are hard to make out. Steer readers with a taste for spoof quest epics to the likes of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld tales, Jodi Lynn Anderson’s May Bird in the Ever After (2005) or the granddaddy of them all, the Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings (1969). (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-73316-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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by Trenton Lee Stewart & illustrated by Carson Ellis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2007
Low in physical violence, while being rich in moral and ethical issues, as well as in appealingly complex characters and...
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-316-05777-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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by Gordon Korman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2020
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace.
Two young people of different generations get profound lessons in the tragic, enduring legacy of war.
Raised on the thrilling yarns of his great-grandpa Jacob and obsessed with both World War II and first-person–shooter video games, Trevor is eager to join the 93-year-old vet when he is invited to revisit the French town his unit had helped to liberate. In alternating chapters, the overseas trip retraces the parallel journeys of two young people—Trevor, 12, and Jacob, in 1944, just five years older—with similarly idealized visions of what war is like as they travel both then and now from Fort Benning to Omaha Beach and then through Normandy. Jacob’s wartime experiences are an absorbing whirl of hard fighting, sudden death, and courageous acts spurred by necessity…but the modern trip turns suspenseful too, as mysterious stalkers leave unsettling tokens and a series of hostile online posts that hint that Jacob doesn’t have just German blood on his hands. Korman acknowledges the widely held view of World War II as a just war but makes his own sympathies plain by repeatedly pointing to the unavoidable price of conflict: “Wars may have winning sides, but everybody loses.” Readers anticipating a heavy-handed moral will appreciate that Trevor arrives at a refreshingly realistic appreciation of video games’ pleasures and limitations. As his dad puts it: “War makes a better video game….But if you’re looking for a way to live, I’ll take peace every time.”
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace. (Fiction/historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-29020-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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