More tantalizing appetizer than full entrée, this book will leave readers hungry for a second helping.
The first in a series, a contemporary castaway tale featuring a blended family.
Twelve-year-old Sarah Robinson (yes, shades of Swiss Family Robinson) is upset: Her father has remarried (he met his new wife, Yvonna Murillo, through online dating). Now Sarah’s stuck with stepbrothers Marco (Sarah’s age) and his little brother, Nacho. Marco’s equally unhappy about moving from Texas to Southern California. When the newlyweds decide to skip their honeymoon in lieu of an all-family cruise, the kids soon face bigger problems than merging food preferences and family traditions. Alternating chapters punctuated with plentiful dialogue move briskly, offering readers Sarah’s and Marco’s reactions to an increasingly surreal adventure. It begins when they board the sketchy Moonflight, manned by an understaffed Capt. Norm (his first mate is a Newfoundland called Ahab), and escalates with a sudden storm that maroons them off a lush tropical island. Sarah and Marco glimpse strange creatures, suggesting trouble lurks in paradise (they must climb trees to avoid giant coconut-eating crabs). Sarah and Marco’s shared sense of danger ultimately transforms them from inconvenienced, contrary preteens to wary allies facing threats no one (including readers) understands: The book ends abruptly and on an ominous note, with a “smear of red” in the sky and many unanswered questions.
More tantalizing appetizer than full entrée, this book will leave readers hungry for a second helping. (Adventure. 10-13)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-02777-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© 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
