Although Kester’s a classic special-kid-who-doesn’t-know-it, the reserved narrative tone and tender yet peculiar view of...
This fantasy journey with a post-apocalyptic setting combines a great fondness for animals with an appreciation of the freakish.
Kester’s spent the past six years at Spectrum Hall Academy for Challenging Children, a penal institution with a Roald Dahl vibe. Spectrum Hall jails kids who steal or eat too much. Kester hasn’t spoken since his mother died, but is he imprisoned for that? Food is “bright pink gloop” that always, always tastes like prawn-cocktail crisps. The whole country eats this corporate-manufactured formula, since the red-eye virus killed all animals except useless varmints and contaminated all crops and vegetables. In this bleak environment, Kester befriends a cockroach—who, with hundreds of fellow cockroaches, busts Kester out of jail one shocking day through a fetid drain. Pigeons carry him to a “wild,” a group of free wild animals in hiding. Although he can’t speak aloud, Kester can communicate silently with varmints and animals. The red-eye is real, the animals are dying, and Kester must evade a murderous, stereotypically disabled bad guy and ride a majestic stag cross-country (with the cockroach and other critters) to reach his veterinarian father, who might have a cure. Present-tense narration creates immediacy and emphasizes Kester’s limited knowledge.
Although Kester’s a classic special-kid-who-doesn’t-know-it, the reserved narrative tone and tender yet peculiar view of animals give this piece its own offbeat flavor. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-01554-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
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