A fast-paced and enjoyable adventure that encourages readers to appreciate the small things in life.
Max, a white boy who is the only deaf student and hearing-aid user in his English boarding school, loves building models, but his world changes when his brilliant mentor, Mr. Darrow, the school janitor, inexplicably disappears.
When Max investigates Darrow’s room, he discovers a minuscule civilization known as the Floor, populated by millions of tiny, sentient people. By using Mr. Darrow’s special goggles, lip-reading, and a special setting on his hearing aids, Max can communicate with the warring populace, who have divided themselves up by hair and eye color (skin color is not mentioned) into separate factions: Blues, Reds, and Greens. With the help of Sasha, Max’s white American roommate; Sasha’s Sparkle Pony–obsessed little sister; Luke, a young Blue prince; and a Red girl named Ivy, Max helps unite the factions, saves the micro world from the evil headmaster, and discovers what happened to Mr. Darrow. Running parallel to Max’s story is one that centers on Luke, in which Max is the Giant. In the author’s note, Montgomery details his research into the experiences of deaf children. Max’s feelings of social isolation due to his deafness are honest, and his growing friendship with Sasha is heartwarming. It is surprising that Max uses no technology beyond hearing aids to navigate the hearing world, but some of this can be understood as more of the headmaster’s incompetence and neglect. While some of the details are inconsistently presented, much of the worldbuilding is deliciously clever.
A fast-paced and enjoyable adventure that encourages readers to appreciate the small things in life. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1884-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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