Fans will feel fulfilled.
What would a film of Timmy Failure’s life look like? Greatness!
Great detective Timmy Failure’s possibly imaginary business partner and polar bear, Total, is missing his polar-bear brother. Timmy would like to help him, but it would disrupt his detecting business—and then there is a solar eclipse at a crucial moment. Taking it as a sign from the gods, Timmy retires from detecting to help Total. Before the polar-bear hunt can progress very far, Timmy’s teacher assigns the class a movie project, and Timmy must write the script. He knows the greatest story never told: his life from birth to detective greatness. Unfortunately, new student Tom John John is to direct it. Now Timmy must deal with his perpetually absent father’s reappearance in town (and his patent refusal to be an international spy), the disappearance of the greatest script ever written, Tom John John’s pretentious frippery, a despondent polar bear, and a host of regular hangers-on (whom anyone else would call friends). Pastis caps his offbeat, frequently absurd, and oft-times sedately madcap series with a satisfying closer. Timmy narrates his tale of greatness in his customary deadpan; Pastis’ line drawings often supply wry punchlines and depict an all-white cast.
Fans will feel fulfilled. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0240-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
BOOK TO SCREEN
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse.
It’s a Bigfeet family reunion!
Everyone’s favorite frosty, furry cryptid, the yeti, actually has a name: Blizz Richards. From his supersecret HQ in Nepal he keeps in touch with his fellow cryptids, all of whom have sworn an oath to keep themselves hidden. That’s not always easy, especially when there are cryptozoologists, like the nasty (but bumbling) George Vanquist, who are always trying to expose the secretive creatures. Vanquist got a picture of Blizz’s cousin Brian near his home in British Columbia, causing the mortified Brian to disappear entirely. When Blizz receives an invitation to a Bigfeet family reunion in Canada, he calls his buddies Alexander (one of Santa’s elves), Gunthar (a goblin) and Frank the Arctic fox to help him get ready. When they arrive in Canada, Brian is still nowhere to be seen. Can Blizz and his skunk ape and other sasquatch cousins find Brian, have the reunion and evade Vanquist? If anyone can, the Bigfeet clan can. Illustrator Sherry’s first volume in the Yeti Files is a fast and funny graphic-prose tale full of labeled pictures and comic-style panels. Those just starting chapter books may have some trouble with a few big words, but they’ll enjoy the big friendly monsters and immediately ask for the next tale—which looks to be about the Loch Ness monster.
Good-hearted fun—great for fans of Kit Feeny and Babymouse. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-55617-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Every girl should be so lucky as to have such a papi.
A screaming, bright-blue comet zooms through the streets of Corona, California, in a race against the orange setting sun.
A unicorn-decorated purple helmet can’t hide the grin of the young girl tightly gripping the waist of her carpenter father, who’s hunched over his blazing motorcycle as a comet tail of sawdust streams behind them. Basking in her father’s wordless expression of love, she watches the flash of colors zip by as familiar landmarks blend into one another. Changes loom all around them, from the abandoned raspado (snow cone) shop to the housing construction displacing old citrus groves. Yet love fills in the spaces between nostalgia and the daily excitement of a rich life shared with neighbors and family. Quintero’s homage to her papi and her hometown creates a vivid landscape that weaves in and out of her little-girl memory, jarring somewhat as it intersects with adult recollections. At the end, her family buys raspados from a handcart—are the vendor and defunct shop’s owner one and the same? Peña’s comic-book–style illustrations capture cultural-insider Mexican-American references, such as a book from Cathy Camper and Raúl the Third’s Lowrider series and the Indigenous jaguar mask on the protagonist’s brother’s T-shirt. Dialogue in speech bubbles incorporates both Spanish and English, and the gist of the conversation is easily followed; a fully Spanish edition releases simultaneously.
Every girl should be so lucky as to have such a papi. (Picture book. 7-11)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55341-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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