The Loch Ness Monster lives in this latest adventure by award-winning author Zindel (The Pigman and Me, 1992, etc.). The beast resides in small Lake Alban in Vermont with his wife and little monsters, trapped there by a man-made salmon grid that blocks the lake's opening back to the deep waters of Lake Champlain. The monster is no mythical creature here but a plesiosaur—a prehistoric cetacean that has survived until the present. Loch, a 15-year-old so nicknamed because he claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster (``Nessie'') ten years earlier in Scotland, lives with his father, Dr. Sam Perkins, and his younger sister, Zaidee, near the lake. Dr. Sam, a marine biologist, works for Anthony Cavenger, who spends fortunes seeking out monsters like Big Foot and Nessie. After reported sightings at Lake Alban, Cavenger and his pseudoscientific, paramilitary organization go to Vermont to investigate. They find the plesiosaurs—who have not devolved like the once fierce sturgeon, as an unlucky photographer and a local yokel discover the hard way. Ruthless Cavenger intends to take the animals alive, dead, or blown to bits. But Loch, Zaidee, and Cavenger's teenage daughter, Sarah, have discovered and befriended a young plesiosaur. They realize that the plesiosaurs are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures, and that it is up to them to save the magnificent beasts. Fast, furious, and masterful. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-024542-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
In a suspenseful first novel, a complacent teenager's intended tryst becomes a weekend of stunning self-discovery. Anticipating a delicious reunion with his high-school sweetheart, Didra, Eric arrives at a secluded country house to find a fugitive from a nearby juvenile-detention center holed up there. Griffin is a paradox: tough, brutally scarred, sporting a self-made tattoo, yet magnetically charming and surprisingly well-educated; Didra, when she arrives, is fascinated by him and his tale of being framed on drug charges. As circumstances force the two young men into reluctant cooperation, the well-planned life Eric is weaving for himself begins to unravel under Griffin's merciless scrutiny. After a shocking series of revelations—Didra's faithlessness to Eric, in the service of her TV career, is only the first—Eric finds himself swinging between rage, fear, desire for Griffin's sister Jojo and confusion at what is, by his lights, irrational behavior. Still, in the end, refusing to let Griffin face the music alone, he gives up a chance to get away. The nature and value of art is an important subtheme here; strong or weak, most of these characters are artists. The author tries their mettle in an intricately complex situation—laced with storms of emotion and violence (Griffin spends most of the novel bleeding from one wound or another)—and ably delivers some sharp insights into what makes people tick. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-30855-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
Pitamic bites off more than she can chew with this instructional art volume, but its core projects will excite in the right context. Twelve pieces of fine art inspire two art projects apiece. Matisse’s The Snail opens the Color section; after history and analysis, there’s one project arranging multicolored tissue-paper squares and one project adding hue to white paint to create stripes of value gradation. These creative endeavors exploring value, shade, texture and various media will exhilarate young artists—but only with at best semi-successful results, as they require an adult dedicated to both advance material procurement and doing the artwork along with the child. Otherwise, complex instructions plus a frequent requirement to draw or trace realistically will cause frustration. Much of the text is above children’s heads, errors of terminology and reproduction detract and the links between the famous pieces and the projects are imprecise. However, an involved adult and an enterprising child aged seven to ten will find many of the projects fabulously challenging and rewarding. Art In Action 2 (ISBN: 978-0-7641-441-7) publishes simultaneously. (artist biographies, glossary, location of originals) (Nonfiction. Adults)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7641-4440-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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