For series fans mostly; readers grabbed by the cover should go back to the beginning.
The cryptid hunters are back (Chupacabra, 2013, etc.), but this time they’re the hunted.
It’s only been a day since 13-year-old Marty O’Hara and his cousin Grace Wolfe (who he used to believe was his twin sister) rescued two baby dinosaurs and Grace herself from fake naturalist (and Grace’s grandfather) Noah Blackwood’s clutches. They are relatively safe with Grace’s father, actual naturalist and cryptid hunter Travis Wolfe, but they need to keep the hatchling dinosaurs out of Blackwood’s grasp and continue the hunt for Marty’s parents, who were lost in a helicopter crash over the jungles of Brazil. Grace, their school friend Luther and Wolfe head to a jaguar preserve with the hatchlings via helicopter while Marty, new friend Dylan and Wolfe’s partner, Ted, head there in a souped-up boat. But nefarious Blackwood and his paid minions are far from idle, and they have surprises both technological and historical for the young adventurers and their friends. The conclusion to Smith’s four-book series has some thrills, but key events of the denouement occur almost entirely off camera, so series fans don’t get to enjoy the villains’ comeuppance as they would probably like to. A huge cast list (thankfully summarized in a character list and series recap at the outset) and too many story threads undercut the action.
For series fans mostly; readers grabbed by the cover should go back to the beginning. (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-08180-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride.
A new virtual-reality theme park goes haywire on a crowd of young victims, er, visitors in Alexander’s latest screamfest.
Having scored one of just 100 coveted preview tickets to a cutting-edge, kids-only venue dubbed ESCAPE, budding amusement park fan and designer Cody Baxter is looking forward to a life-changing experience. What he gets is more of a life-threatening one, as games and rides with names like Triassic Terror and Haunted Hillside not only pit him against a monster and then zombies—or sometimes a monster and zombies—as well as ruthless competing players, but seem tailored to play on individual personal terrors. And, in some never explained way, the VR quickly turns into real battles that inflict real wounds even as the real settings shift with sudden, dizzying unpredictability. Teaming up with loyal new friends Jayson Torn and Inga Andersdottir, the former described as being Japanese and White and the latter as Norwegian, Cody (who seems to default to White) struggles for survival, learning ultimately that ESCAPE was created by an evil genius with an ulterior motive who is convinced that he can teach children a salutary lesson. The plot’s no more logical in its twists and contrivances than the premise, but the author’s knack for spinning out nightmarish situations is definitely on display here as the tale careens toward a properly lurid outcome.
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride. (Light horror. 9-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-26047-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
