The strange pacing sometimes makes the book feel unbalanced, but the action sequences are worth the wait.
In a future in which alien intervention has drastically reversed global warming, British schoolgirl Alice Dare discovers that, instead of beginning a new semester at Muckling Abbot School for Girls, she's been drafted into basic training on Mars, fighting the enemies of the human race.
Science-fiction novels have always borrowed from one another, but it’s surprising how many different tropes McDougall employs. There’s plenty of space warfare, of course, but there are also scenes that resemble stories about boarding schools. And when the students meet the Morrors, the dialogue owes a huge debt to Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday (2007). Oddly enough, all this sampling and shifting of tone increase the novel’s suspense. The second half of the story is one reversal after another, and that makes up for the much slower early chapters. People reading the first 50 pages may start to list things the characters aren’t doing: They don’t encounter aliens. They don’t fire weapons. They don’t go to Mars. There is, however, a fair amount of schoolwork. Alice’s deadpan narration is always entertaining, and a few sentences are dazzling, like a description of Earth from far away: “And then we saw a pale bluish star that was brighter than the others, and it grew in the dark, like a flower.”
The strange pacing sometimes makes the book feel unbalanced, but the action sequences are worth the wait. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-229399-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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