Having plunged into Tartarus at the end of the last book, The Mark of Athena (2013), Percy and Annabeth struggle toward the Doors of Death, while their friends hurry to meet them on the other side at the titular House of Hades.
Riordan is most successful in his evocation of Tartarus and its hellish, monster-infested landscape. Without lightening his heroes’ miseries in any way, the author provides a helper and necessary mood-lifter in the person of Iapetus/Bob, the Titan whose memory Percy had obliterated with the waters of Lethe in a previous adventure. Now Hades’ janitor, Bob, along with a skeletal saber-tooth kitten he names Small Bob, joins Percy and Annabeth on their trek, causing them both to plumb unexpected moral depths. Meanwhile, on board (and off) the Argo II, Jason, Piper, Leo, Hazel and Frank similarly must come to understand themselves better in order to accomplish the tasks set before them (though not to equal extents). Though Riordan doesn’t stint on action or laughs (fart jokes abound, and a tart-tongued Calypso is a special treat), readers may find themselves appreciating these moments of contemplation all the more for the depth of characterization they reveal. The denouement finds the demigods poised for the final battle with Gaea and her minions; they have exactly 14 days to save the world. In this adventure, victories are hard-won and the essence of bravery nuanced, making the journey as satisfying as it is entertaining. (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4672-8
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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