What’s next? Probably an equally maladroit series of trips to the Revolutionary War itself.
Rush Revere and his horse, Liberty, return to Manchester Middle School for more “rush, rush, rushing to history.”
It hasn’t been long since Rush and Liberty took students Tommy and Freedom to Plymouth Plantation (Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, 2013), but they are stoked for more time travel when the unorthodox substitute teacher returns. This time, he includes new student Cam, an African-American military child, and blonde queen-bee Elizabeth in his hops, taking various configurations of the foursome to a handful of places and times between 1765 and 1774. Oddly, though Rush’s namesake’s famous ride is referenced, they do not travel to witness it. Other missed opportunities include a visit to chat with Patrick Henry, though not to hear his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, and a trip to Philadelphia to stand around outside Carpenters’ Hall while inside, the First Continental Congress debates severing trade ties with Great Britain. As before, blithe disregard for the basic conventions of time-travel fantasy and leaden, amateurish prose characterize the effort. A surfeit of exclamation points (seven in one paragraph at one point) fails to compensate for the text’s inveterate tendency to tell, not show. Characterizations are particularly weak; Elizabeth is an extreme cartoon of a brat, and Cam displays bizarre equanimity at being assumed a slave. Rush himself and Liberty are as affable as ever, though. Readers interested in the received narrative of the lead-up to the American Revolution would do much better to look for the old Landmark books in their local libraries.
What’s next? Probably an equally maladroit series of trips to the Revolutionary War itself. (author's note, quiz) (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5588-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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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