Uneven but could get kids thinking about ways to safeguard the environment.
Fifth in a series, this children’s chapter book finds practical and fanciful ways to promote environmentalism.
Jackson, nearly 11, came back to Earth about a year ago with his mother and sister from their dying world. Tara, a girl from Earth his age, found a magic portal and led them to safety as predicted by Magic Moon, who grants certain requests and gives advice. In Magic Moon’s new world, he helped young Farni, who was being bullied—no more, thanks in part to the protection of Brown Bear. Now, though, Brown Bear is in danger, his kind almost extinct. Magic Moon suggests using an upcoming solar eclipse to get the villagers’ attention and demonstrate Brown Bear’s harmlessness. On Earth, Jackson looks forward to going with Tara and her family to Bears Ears National Monument—but is saddened to learn that the government plans to discontinue many protections for the area. He decides to get signatures on a petition and send it to his representative. On an exciting ride in Tara’s grandfather’s helicopter, also during a solar eclipse, the families fly through another magic portal to Farni’s world, which Magic Moon says can be another home for endangered species like grizzlies. In both worlds, children learn that they can make a difference. Moulton (Magic Moon: A New Beginning [Vol. 4], 2017, etc.) employs humor and the appeal of magic to enliven her protect-the-environment message. The idea of a Noah’s Ark planet where endangered species can safely live also has a lot of appeal. Dialogue reveals character well; for example, the children speak casually, while the scientists on Farni’s world use a stuffier register—an amusing contrast to Magic Moon’s directness. For example, after Magic Moon booms, “I’m right here!” the scientists reply with “It speaks!...What manner of being is this?” The overall story unfolds via short chapters that alternate between worlds, and it can be hard to follow the separate plotlines, which tend to get lost in all the detail about, for example, proper viewing equipment for the eclipse.
Uneven but could get kids thinking about ways to safeguard the environment.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9983137-3-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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