A (mostly) tasty second helping.
A zombie escapee is recaptured by the top-secret government agency that created him.
The smartest kid in the fifth grade, Arnold Z. Ombee (a zombie, obvi), uses his superintelligence to tutor a struggling classmate. Now Arnold is accepted—maybe even popular. But it’s not just the cool kids who have their eye on him. Arnold catches an oddly familiar man spying on him and his human family, the Kinders. Soon after the encounter, the police inform Arnold’s school that an “undocumented fugitive” is in attendance. The man—a Dr. Grassmere—convinces Arnold’s family to let him take Arnold back to the Territory for a week of testing. But the “tests” serve a more sinister purpose: brainwashing Arnold and his “fellow afterlifes” and turning them into superstrong zombie warriors! Will Arnold snap out of it and remember his human life? Or is it already too late? This sequel one-ups A Zombie Ate My Homework’s (2019) infectiously hilarious tone with more over-the-top sequences, amplified by Bardin’s cartoon spot illustrations. Arnold alternates some first-person narration duties with classmate Evan, which adds an extra dose of character development to corpse-white Arnold’s diverse cast of friends, such as revealing that Evan is a cancer survivor. The messages about acceptance and belonging are timely—although using the term “undocumented” to refer to a zombie does leave a bit of a bad taste.
A (mostly) tasty second helping. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-30596-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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