Expertly combines an intricate adventure plot with an authentic coming-of-age story.
In this trilogy closer set in the Gilded Age, Florida sisters Frankie and Lulu Davenport and their best friend, Algie Emsworth, once again find themselves embroiled in danger.
Frankie is laser-focused on becoming the most famous naturalist of her day, eager to best her adversary (and former mentor), the wicked Professor Champion. Seeing an ad for a paddleboat river trip and feeling guilty over an event in the previous book in which she sabotaged her father’s commercial fishing fleet, she decides the trip is the perfect way to bring the family together—and, not incidentally, to investigate rumors of a strange aquatic monster. Accompanied by Algie, his mother, and his older brother, Everett, the Davenports set off on the paddleboat tour. The trip becomes filled with tension after Everett encounters a former classmate from Chicago with whom he has a contentious relationship. Meanwhile, the kids hear an eerie call—is it the mysterious creature? The third-person narrative, following 13-year-old Frankie’s point of view, skillfully highlights the prickly and confusing early teen years even as Frankie confronts internal clashes between ambition and responsibility. After Lulu experiences a near tragedy, Frankie is forced to take a hard look at her decisions, but she doesn’t, thankfully, lose her gritty edge. Earlier entries established the siblings as white and Cuban American and Algie as white.
Expertly combines an intricate adventure plot with an authentic coming-of-age story. (Historical adventure. 9-14)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781454960614
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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