With the help of a dead magician, a quick-witted young orphan foils a dastardly plot—in this breathless new adventure from the author of The Whipping Boy (1986, Newbery Award). When Touch pays a car on his great-uncle and sole surviving relative, Judge Henry Wigglesforth, he finds himself under pressure to sign over a previously unknown inheritance from his roving father. Wigglesforth is also leaning on pretty Miss Sally Hoskins to sell her Red Raven Inn for a pittance—rumor has it that a gold-toothed guest was murdered there, and business has fallen off. Meanwhile, Wigglesforth's sinister confederate Otis Cratt (why does he keep his face muffled?) is lurking about, intent on a certain bag of Pacific Island pearls. Touch is never one to let injustice go unchallenged; enlisting the aid of the ghost of The Great Chaffalo, a local magician, he tricks Cratt, stymies Wigglesforth, and saves the pearls as well as the Red Raven. Once again, Fleischman's storytelling is grandly melodramatic; a clear line separates good from evil, scenes are set with brisk economy, and characters speak their lines with grace and emphasis. Sis' dark, posed, slightly distorted figures add to these theatrics an undercurrent of mystery and a "Touch" of wit. Outstanding.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-688-09441-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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