This delightful adventure inspired by Gulliver’s Travels will appeal to budding fantasy readers—and position them for the...
A pocket-sized but fiery heroine proves that brains always beat brawn, even in the streets of London.
After enduring ridicule back home in London for his stories about the tiny citizens of Lilliput, Gulliver is intent on proving that his travels there actually occurred. He returns to the island and plucks young Lily right off the beach to act as living proof. Imprisoned by Gulliver for six months (or half her life), Lily is determined to return home before it’s too late. Gulliver keeps her trapped in a bird cage hanging from a ceiling in a musty attic above a clockmaker’s store, but Lily perseveres with her numerous escape plans. After failing for the 33rd time, she loses all hope of seeing her grandmother again. However, the clockmaker’s apprentice, Finn, discovers the note she tied to a mouse’s tail from Escape Plan 21 and rescues her from Gulliver. Finn and Lily’s new friends, Mr. Ozinda, a chocolatier who speaks only in rhyme, and his parrot, Señor Chitchat, offer comic relief as they come to her aid. Young readers will adore Lily’s grouchiness yet relate to her compassion for those less fortunate. Sporadic pencil-and-watercolor illustrations offer a hint of Lily’s fiery temper but mostly serve to break up the text.
This delightful adventure inspired by Gulliver’s Travels will appeal to budding fantasy readers—and position them for the source material later on. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-56145-806-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds.
Pranksters George and Harold face the deadliest challenge of their checkered careers: a supersmart, superstrong gym teacher.
With the avowed aim of enticing an audience of “grouchy old people” to the Waistband Warrior’s latest exploit, Pilkey promises “references to health care, gardening, Bob Evans restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives.” He delivers, too. But lest fans of the Hanes-clad hero fret, he also stirs in plenty of fart jokes, brain-melting puns, and Flip-O-Rama throwdowns. After a meteorite transforms Mr. Meaner into a mad genius (evil, of course, because “as everyone knows, most gym teachers are inherently evil”) and he concocts a brown gas that turns children into blindly obedient homework machines, George and Harold travel into the future to enlist aid from their presumably immune adult selves. Temporarily leaving mates and children (of diverse sexes, both) behind, Old George and Old Harold come to the rescue. But Meaner has a robot suit (of course he has a robot suit), and he not only beats down the oldsters, but is only fazed for a moment when Capt. Underpants himself comes to deliver a kick to the crotch. Fortunately, gym teachers, “like toddlers,” will put anything in their mouths—so an ingestion of soda pop and Mentos at last spells doom, or more accurately: “CHeffGoal-D’BLOOOM!”
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-50492-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Despite missteps, this satisfying follow-up will leave readers hoping for more magical adventures with lovable Jax and...
Jaxon and his friends deal with the fallout from the theft of one of the baby dragons in his charge.
As this sequel to Dragons in a Bag (2018) opens, Kavita, the titular dragon thief, introduces elderly Aunty to stolen baby dragon Mo. Thankfully, Aunty knows someone in Queens who can help return Mo to the realm of magic. Meanwhile, and in alternating first-person chapters, Jax is trying to find Kavi and Mo, as Mo’s siblings have grown ill as a result of the separation, as has Ma, Jax’s magical mentor and grandmother figure. Jax again teams up with his best friend and Kavi’s older brother, Vik. A third is added to their crew with “huge” Kenny, “the biggest kid in [their] class.” (Unfortunately, much is made of Kenny’s size, which feels gratuitous and unkind.) Eventually the trio finds Kavi, Aunty, and Mo, who’ve been abducted by a magical con artist. All’s well that ends well when Sis, the powerful guardian of the magic realm, shows up, but readers may wonder why the narrative decides to grapple with her choice not to intervene in injustice in our world. Her argument that human-caused problems are for humans to solve feels undeveloped, especially in the face of a massive injustice like the trans-Atlantic slave trade (mentioned during the climax and at no other point). Jax is black; Vik, Kavi, and Aunty are Indian American (though Aunty has African ancestry as well); and Kenny is white. The rest of the cast is diverse as well.
Despite missteps, this satisfying follow-up will leave readers hoping for more magical adventures with lovable Jax and company. (Urban fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7049-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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