Freshly certified as a young diver, 12-year-old Fernando “Fin” Román loves to spend his days at sea around the Florida Keys alongside his strong Abuelo Kiki in search of legendary lost treasure.
The treasure hunt, moreover, marks a thread through Fin’s Cuban and Puerto Rican family heritage, starting with his great-grandfather. Misfortune strikes one day while Fin and Abuelo are at sea, and Abuelo has a stroke, requiring Fin to radio for help and pilot the boat back to the marina. With Abuelo in the hospital, Fin hatches a plan to find the treasure on his behalf, reminding himself: “Plot my coordinates. Chart my destiny. Save Abuelo. Find the family legacy.” To do so, he needs to enlist the help of his father, whose safety-conscious attitude annoys and repels adventure-loving Fin. There’s another catch: Certified adult guides must accompany Fin on his dives, meddling in (and perhaps threatening) his hunt. As Dad gets fed up with the hunt, time runs out for Fin even as Abuelo’s health seems to fade. Fin and his dad must rely on and trust each other to overcome obstacles—seen and unseen—in search of the treasure. Rodriguez packs a ton of local historical know-how and genuine humor into a seaworthy debut adventure. Lighthearted yet solid prose and quirky, delightful characters round out this swell tale of plucky fun under (and above) the sea.
Here be treasure indeed. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-38979-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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PERSPECTIVES
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION
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