A brisk romp chock-full of tricky twists and daffy doings.
Framed for the theft of a billion-dollar ruby, an 11 ½-year-old orphan hooks up with the World’s Greatest Detective to collar the perp.
In a tale for which the word madcap might have been invented, hardly has John Boarhog awakened in a gallery of the fictional New York Museum of Natural History with what seems to be a very large gem in his pocket, than he’s cast into a whirl of unlikely encounters and mishaps in pursuit of the world’s greatest thief, the Mauve Moth—who might or might not, he is shocked to learn, be his beloved, long-missing mom! In the course of a plot that careens from the city jail to the observation deck of the Chrysler Building, climaxing with a chase through Manhattan involving a banana truck, a rickshaw, a horse-drawn carriage, a dog, a motorcycle, a police horse, and a fire truck, the plucky preteen meets a gaggle of (mostly) allies led by genial if maddeningly oblique Society of Sleuths investigator Toadius McGee…an oddly large number of whom confess to being ex-members of a certain defunct circus with a tragic past that will no doubt be articulated in future episodes. Along with proving to be a resilient sort, John turns out to be no mean detective himself and, by the end, proudly sports a probationary S.O.S. badge of his own. John, Toadius, and other significant characters have brown skin.
A brisk romp chock-full of tricky twists and daffy doings. (Detective fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64595-105-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pixel+Ink
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters.
Two young teens with special powers face an ancient evil rising from the very heart of the Tinvali Empire in this doorstopping series opener.
Pursued by ruthless agents eager to exploit her mysterious ability to read peoples’ true feelings, Arden—eventually, after many chapters alternating between dual narrators—links up with foundling Mako, a budding music mage who’s carefully hiding the fact that he’s invited an invisible smooth-talking trickster spirit named Narrix to be his lifelong guardian. It seems that some of Narrix’s fellow spirits may be even nastier—and there are ominous hints that they might be sneaking back into the world. Several of Arden’s adventures do more to bulk up the page count than advance the plot in any meaningful way, and though (like many of Mull’s protagonists) she’s a dab hand at snarky banter, she otherwise comes off as a rather wooden character. Readers may find Mako’s journey and conflicts more absorbing, as he struggles to balance the joy of blossoming into an outstanding warrior under Narrix’s tutelage with the sneaking suspicion he’s made a bad choice of tutor. Whether his concerns are valid or not remains to be seen. The leads present white.
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780593712047
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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