Cuteness can’t prop up this sagging sophomore slump.
A race car–loving squirrel learns to temper his impulsive streak.
Following 2020’s Revver the Speedway Squirrel, readers are reunited with Revver, the pit crew squirrel. He loves the action and bustle of the racetrack and all the busyness that surrounds it, but he especially loves his human friends, Bill and Joe. When the race team moves circuits, though, Revver has a tough time exercising patience, causing a few catastrophic crashes and then missing his flight with the team. Separated from his humans, he must rely on the goodness of others to help him find his way back to them. Faced with a perilous journey during which he hikes along a treacherous highway, stows away on a crowded train, and encounters a conniving cat, can Revver reunite with his people before the next big race? Rinker’s tale is filled with abundant squirrel cuteness and a smattering of giggle-inducing poop and puke scenes but falls somewhat flat, mired in its own didacticism with its heavy-handed insistence on patience and kindness. Revver’s observations of the world come across as mundane, favoring telling over showing. The text utilizes a plethora of stylistic conventions—words in all caps, bold emphases, italics, and different fonts—which combined may prove too distracting and might have worked better in a shorter-form chapter book. Human characters are presumed White.
Cuteness can’t prop up this sagging sophomore slump. (Animal adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0367-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
© Copyright 2025 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.
