It’s 1409, and nine-and-a-half-year-old Roland Wright, son of the best armorer in the kingdom, dreams of becoming a brave knight. Alas, knighthood is only for sons of the nobility. The prospect seems more achievable when a royal emissary arrives one day at his father’s armory. The officer-of-arms announces that the grateful king, whose life was saved in battle because he wore Mr. Wright’s excellent suit of armor, will repay the craftsman by taking one of his sons into his court to be trained as a page, the stepping stone to eventual knighthood. The wise father sets Roland and his older brother several challenging tasks to discover who’s worthy of the honor. With inspiration and guidance from a friendly local knight and Roland’s pet mouse, the (W)right brother ultimately wins out through feats of strength—of character—as much as demonstrations of hard work and courage. The slightly preachy message about following one’s best instincts comes through in this pleasant, undemanding Australian import, first in a series, illustrated with wry humor by Rogers and filled with some interesting details about knights and the Middle Ages. (Historical fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73800-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
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
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