by Pete Hautman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 2016
Tightly plotted mysteries lightened with wacky, ludicrous humor.
In this sequel to The Flinkwater Factor (2015), Hautman returns to quirky Flinkwater for more technology-driven mysteries with spunky carrot-topped Ginger.
Kicking off an e-book–vs.–print storyline, the white girl’s homework assignment—finding how Flinkwater got its name—leads her to the computer-free library, where a controlling pair of white, evangelical caricatures (the preachy kind with a life-size, blue-eyed Jesus statue in their front yard) wishes to ban Charlotte’s Web for its ungodly talking animals. Sassy Ginger gets involved and decides to read the book—but to the librarian’s dismay, she opts for the electronic version. Later that night, Ginger discovers that every electronic version of the book has been hacked. To recover the book, she seeks help from her brainy best friend and boyfriend (and fiance, though he doesn’t know it yet), but he doesn’t remember her: it seems that a plague of memory lapses is following the use of a new memory and learning technology. But is it a side effect…or something sinister? Investigating the man behind the memory machine, Ginger gets into wacky animal adventures and peril. The storyline’s climactic moment comes a bit too easily, but the surrounding story is good fun. Most characters (barring animal rescuer Myke, adopted from Africa) seem to be white. A lengthy denouement answers all remaining plot questions, tying the subplots together. A final section indicates the present-vs.-future status of the featured technology.
Tightly plotted mysteries lightened with wacky, ludicrous humor. (Science fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6438-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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by Louis Sachar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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by Louis Sachar ; illustrated by Tim Heitz
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by Stuart Gibbs ; illustrated by Anjan Sarkar ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Will satisfy fans but could be better.
Young CIA agent-in-training Benjamin Ripley switches sides—or is he just going undercover?—in this graphic version of the third Spy School caper.
Sticking to the plot of the 2015 original, this episode sees the talented math whiz recruited by nefarious organization SPYDER after being (unjustly, he fumes) kicked out of the CIA’s academy. While training in a hidden school for evildoers with other prospective villains, including Ashley Sparks, a gushy former competitive gymnast with a fondness for portmanteau words (sweet + awesome = swawesome), Ben gets wind of a dastardly scheme to make billions on government construction projects. Hot if inept pursuit by both rival espionage agencies takes Ben from a secret underground command center to the top of the Statue of Liberty. But while the action has a rapid flow in the art (Sarkar is good at portraying fights, high-speed chases, and explosions), several characters are drawn with generic features and such a limited range of expressions that even with help from the cast gallery, it’s hard to tell them apart easily. Still, along with coming through in the suspenseful climax—thanks to clever deductions and quick thinking—by the end, Ben has also achieved a long-sought breakthrough with Erica Hale (code name “Ice Queen”), a superbly omnicompetent schoolmate who has his heart as well as his back. The cast largely presents white.
Will satisfy fans but could be better. (Graphic thriller. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781665931946
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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