This winning, consistently funny, smartly silly adventure could be one of Nate’s kooky gadgets, a middle-grade reading...
Sixth-graders Delphine and Nate, aided by Nate’s talking dog, Bosper, evade the Red Death Tea Society, an evil organization that excels at both death and brewing, while trying to capture Proton, the family cat, which Nate made both gigantic and invisible.
Delphine Cooper, the likable Everygirl who narrates Tobin’s absurdly funny, gadget-filled adventure, is pretty, with ordinary brains and a million friends. Nate Bannister, her comic foil, is an eccentric loner who also happens to be an off-the-charts genius. And Bosper—well, except for his tendency to fart, he’s the best dog ever. The premise of the series is that every Friday the 13th, Nate does three dumb things that Delphine helps him to rectify. Although this series opener goes on too long, the comic circumstances Tobin creates are imaginative and funny: the supersized catnip incense burner Nate sets up to attract Proton also attracts every other cat in the neighborhood, creating further complications for Delphine, who is dressed as a very large mouse at the time. Both of the heroes in this series, which is aimed equally at boys and girls, are neatly characterized, and it’s clear why they become friends. Both are white in Lafontaine’s illustrations.
This winning, consistently funny, smartly silly adventure could be one of Nate’s kooky gadgets, a middle-grade reading attractor. (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61963-840-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride.
A new virtual-reality theme park goes haywire on a crowd of young victims, er, visitors in Alexander’s latest screamfest.
Having scored one of just 100 coveted preview tickets to a cutting-edge, kids-only venue dubbed ESCAPE, budding amusement park fan and designer Cody Baxter is looking forward to a life-changing experience. What he gets is more of a life-threatening one, as games and rides with names like Triassic Terror and Haunted Hillside not only pit him against a monster and then zombies—or sometimes a monster and zombies—as well as ruthless competing players, but seem tailored to play on individual personal terrors. And, in some never explained way, the VR quickly turns into real battles that inflict real wounds even as the real settings shift with sudden, dizzying unpredictability. Teaming up with loyal new friends Jayson Torn and Inga Andersdottir, the former described as being Japanese and White and the latter as Norwegian, Cody (who seems to default to White) struggles for survival, learning ultimately that ESCAPE was created by an evil genius with an ulterior motive who is convinced that he can teach children a salutary lesson. The plot’s no more logical in its twists and contrivances than the premise, but the author’s knack for spinning out nightmarish situations is definitely on display here as the tale careens toward a properly lurid outcome.
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride. (Light horror. 9-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-26047-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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