A skillfully written and illustrated tale about an imaginative tween.
In Grubb’s middle-grade novel, a boy finds that it’s not easy being a kid—and it’s even harder if you’re also a superhero.
It’s the summer before he starts sixth grade at Black Butte Ranch in Oregon, and he feels as if everything in his world is changing—especially since his beloved Great Gramp died. Nick and his grandfather invented Click, a superhero character, and the boy still loves working on a Click comic book. He’s a huge fan of comic-book hero Superman, but his old friends left their love of superheroes behind and got into team sports, and Nick’s dad wishes his son would do the same; meanwhile, Nick’s mom has him doing book reports over summer break. As a result, Nick feels like nothing he does is good enough. On top of everything else, Nick’s dad is about to lose his job and move the family to a big city. What nobody seems to notice is that Nick has unusual gifts: He’s an artist who has a great understanding of animals, and he has a big heart. The summer takes a turn for the better when he makes some new friends who like him for who is. When the townsfolk discover that someone has been going around doing good deeds at night, Nick relies on his friends to help him keep his identity a secret. Each chapter opens with a clever and beautifully drawn full-page grayscale comic by Tisdel starring Click and a cast of characters inspired by Nick’s life. The story is compulsively readable, as the pace is dynamic—sometimes exciting and other times tender and contemplative. Nick’s character is easy to relate to in a story that highlights his creativity, self-doubt, grief, patience, and genuine dedication to serving others. The prose is never patronizing and always deeply engaging, with descriptive passages that put the reader in Nick’s shoes; one feels his attachment to his home and to his developing relationships. Each character has their own distinct voice, backstory, and sensibilities, all filtered through Nick’s perspective.
A skillfully written and illustrated tale about an imaginative tween.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 978-1646034390
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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