Madcap inventions, bite-sized heroics, and supersized clumsiness wrapped in a winning package.
Superhero Harry saves the day in this hijinks-filled story collection.
In these four stories, previously released as stand-alones, one clumsy boy invents gadgets so that he can fulfill his superhero dreams. The adventure begins with “The Superhero Project.” It’s the start of the school year. For his first class assignment, Harry must show how he’s a superhero in his everyday life. Harry happily gets to work on a pair of “superhero rocket blaster boots.” That’s what it takes to be an everyday hero, right? In “The Recess Bully,” the new kid in class causes trouble for Harry and his classmates. Harry must do the unexpected to save the day: befriend the bully! When Harry builds a robot to do his chores in the “The Runaway Robot,” he can’t wait to show off his latest invention at the class science fair. But after his robot runs amok at school, Harry learns to use his inventions for a better purpose. Things get wilder in “The Wild Field Trip” thanks to Harry’s latest invention: the “super swinger wristbands”! As a collection, Harry’s four adventures rely on repetition and gentle humor to impart easy lessons, supported by Ruiz’s clear, lively prose. May’s cartoony illustrations, meanwhile, add a dash of zany, colorful fun to the events and include a racially diverse cast of characters; Harry himself is depicted with olive skin and spiky black hair.
Madcap inventions, bite-sized heroics, and supersized clumsiness wrapped in a winning package. (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62370-886-3
Page Count: 161
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Yo ho ho and a bottle of sun screen.
In her latest outing, clever young Matilda leaves Dull-on-Sea for a pirates-only theme park and joins the hunt for Mad Jack McMuddle’s long-buried treasure (The Pirates Next Door, 2012, etc.).
In illustrations that are positively awash with classic piratical gear and nautical detail, Matilda joins her friend Jim Lad and his buccaneer family, the Jolley-Rogers, aboard the Blackhole for a voyage to aptly named Scurvy Sands. Her welcome there is decidedly mixed (“My monkey can’t find any lice, / but says her hair smells very nice!”), though, until she passes the “pirate test” by gathering clues left by Mad Jack to dig up, as revealed in a climactic double gatefold, a veritable mountain of glittering loot. If the plotline and sometimes-ungainly rhymes aren’t going to shiver any timbers, all the skulls, crossbones, fancy hats and coats, eye patches, carved peg legs, sashes, unkempt hair and beards, tattoos, and snaggly teeth on display will rouse mighty cheers from pirate fans of any stripe. Duddle even adds an aerial map of the ramshackle rides and restaurants. Home Matilda sails at the end…but even though she “really couldn’t wait to be / landlubbing back in Dull-On-Sea,” further rousing sea adventures doubtless await. Matilda and the Jolley-Rogers present white; one young guest and flamboyant official greeter Cap’n Ollie Day are the only people of color in sight on the beaches and boardwalks.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of sun screen. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9293-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bland, hypercautious, and sloppy.
A set of rhymed riddles sends young Mason pelting through a natural history museum in search of both solutions and the best place for his birthday sleepover.
Joined by friends Will and Zoe at the museum’s entrance, Mason starts out with a “Dino Fossil Dig” in the Discovery Room’s sandbox. Equipped with headlamps and a fold-out map, the kids then dash down darkened halls (museum employee Jesse in tow) to marvel at models of Saturn, a T. Rex, and a dodo; wild-animal exhibits; live butterflies; and other wonders. After winding up in the party room for cake, Mason and his pals bed down beneath a huge blue whale suspended from the ceiling. As the explorers somehow never get to the Hall of Human Origins or the ethnographic exhibits marked on the endpaper floor plans, this has its limits as a model itinerary for a visit to a real science museum, where evolutionary science is covered and, perhaps, some humans are uncovered. More problematically, the illustrations mislead or include actual errors: “Just look at the diamonds sparkle!” Zoe enthuses, gazing at a jumble of large, elongated blue crystals. Elsewhere, a set of “extinct predators” includes two herbivores, a group labeled “African Elephant” seems to include at least two of the Asian subspecies, and all of the visible exhibits in the Hall of Dinosaurs are fleshed-out models rather than skeletons. A substantial list of natural history and other types of museums with sleepover programs at the end offers leads to more authentic experiences. Mason and Zoe present white; Will presents black; and Jesse presents Asian.
Bland, hypercautious, and sloppy. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7140-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
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