When Jocasta's beloved companion and costar Belle (an Old English sheepdog) is kidnapped by Maxwell Pym, a film producer, the dauntless Jo flies after them in her handy little red seaplane, trailing them from Hollywood to New York, London, and ``Wangaloo'' in the Java Sea. There, she reclaims Belle and sets Pym's yacht adrift, stranding him and his accomplices until the police can pick them up. The slight plot is much enhanced by Gerrard's witty verse (pungent, felicitous words, all neatly rhyming and scanning without missing a beat) and even more by his elegantly mannered illustrations, setting the events in the 30's and using art deco touches not only in furnishings and architecture but in details (trees, waves, etc.) and in the decorations throughout. A round-the-world journey is standard picture-book fare, but this travelogue is unusually entertaining. (Picture book. 6+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-33654-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s no bones about it: young readers will get a taste of the classic in a fun and humerus way (wocka wocka).
The Muppets put a humorous spin on the classic tragedy The Phantom of the Opera.
The plot is much the same as the original, with Muppets filling in for the original characters. Vicomte Kermit de Chagny and Mademoiselle Piggy Daaé are the main characters and love interests in this tragic tale. As in the classic, Piggy Daaé rises as a star of the Paris Opera House due to training from an Angel of Music, who in this tale is a Koozebanian of Music from the planet Koozebane (or is he?). The main difference between this book and the classic (other than the cast) is the conglomeration of time periods, with a mix of details drawn from both the 21st and the 19th centuries. This may cause older readers mild confusion at first, but children will likely read without inhibition, as the experience of coming across names and objects they recognize and some things they may not is a familiar one. This puntastic tale is full of beloved faces, such as the grouchy pranksters Statler and Waldorf. As in many children’s stories, there is entertainment for older readers with abundant modern references, often found in footnotes, as in a tidbit about Beaker’s burial alongside Oscar Wilde, Molière, and Jim Morrison.
There’s no bones about it: young readers will get a taste of the classic in a fun and humerus way (wocka wocka). (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-53437-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A good story with some unexpected twists
After saving the life of a famous model, a 14-year-old Mexican-American boy learns the pressures of popularity and the definition of true heroism.
Dallas freshman Rawly Sánchez knows that life is not perfect. His older brother Jaime is in prison, while his mother’s Mexican restaurant is barely staying afloat. Now, he can’t even visit his brother on Saturdays anymore, or he will miss the required tutoring for the algebra class he is failing. Small bursts of happiness come in the comic books he loves and in hanging out with his nerdy, often-annoying, wisecracking Jewish best friend Nevin Steinberg. Things take a turn for the worse when someone accidentally sets a pig loose in his mom’s restaurant, and the incident makes the local news. Then, Nevin talks Rawly into performing as a duo at the school talent show, where he makes a fool of himself in front of his crush, Miyoko. Everything changes when Rawly misses his bus stop and ends up rescuing 22-year-old model Nikki Demetrius when her car plunges into a river. Instantly, Rawly is on the local and national news, hailed as a hero for saving Nikki’s life. The third-person narration follows Rawley’s journey as he learns who his real friends are and the difference between comic-book and real-world heroes.
A good story with some unexpected twists . (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55885-711-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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