Another milestone in human-mouse collaboration, virtuosic of visuals and tongue in cheek of tone.
To a mouse, even space and time must bend when there’s cheese involved.
Having long looked forward to visiting the world’s greatest cheese festival, a mouse is stunned to find only a hall full of packing crates. “That was yesterday, Einstein!” says a replete fellow rodent sarcastically. “You’re a day late!” Well, might it be possible to turn back time? What is time anyway? As in Armstrong (2016) and Edison (2018), Kuhlmann employs a mix of narrative and fantastically detailed mouse’s-eye-view pencil-and-watercolor scenes to portray a small, furry investigator intrepidly tackling scientific and technological challenges in a human-sized world—here involving old records in a certain Swiss patent office, clock gears and computer parts, trial and error, and equations on chalkboards. Not to mention the guts to climb inside a cobbled-together gizmo and the cleverness, when he accidentally ends up in pre-computer 1905, to entice a certain young patent clerk with a familiar brushy mustache to do the necessary calculations for a return trip—minus a day. This he does with a series of leading riddles about the relationship between space and time (what, you thought Einstein came up with relativity on his own?). The author closes with an overview of the great (human) scientist’s life and a set of reasonably clear thought experiments demonstrating some of his insights. Einstein, drawn with great fidelity, and other, less-distinct human figures are White.
Another milestone in human-mouse collaboration, virtuosic of visuals and tongue in cheek of tone. (Illustrated fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4444-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
It’s hard not to like a main character who brings a lab coat and briefcase to elementary school.
In one panel of this third outing for Mal and his talking dog, Chad, a boy is wearing a hat shaped like a giraffe. This is never explained, except that he’s auditioning for the talent show. The real reason for the hat, of course, is that McCranie likes to draw giraffes. It’s the same reason there’s a giant bust of Albert Einstein on the lawn of Mal’s school. Mal is a boy inventor, which gives the artist a chance to draw a clock with a robot hand popping out of it. “Why not invent an alarm clock that wakes you up gently…?” Mal asks rhetorically. The hand, he notes, “tenderly pats you on the head until you wake up.” Kid inventors are not popular at Einstein Elementary. Mal’s crush, Megan, won’t even invite him to her birthday party. Sometimes Mal will glance at her across the room, and she doesn’t look back. These scenes are drawn with as much skill as the giraffes and robots, and they are heartbreaking. In another panel, Mal sees Megan and skips into the air with joy. He’s a foot off the ground, and the tiny picture shows exactly how it feels to be in elementary school and in love. This emotional honesty alone is a reason to buy this book; the giraffe and Einstein are the icing on McCranie’s cake. (Graphic fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25658-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
Skip.
Lucy Moon, an aspiring horse rustler from Georgia, teams up with fashionista Flor Bernoulli from New York City to outwit the tiny Square Man, who wants to destroy all the curves in the universe.
In this disjointed sequel to The Secret Spiral (2011), the two 10-year-olds, previously strangers, discover that they were destined to become pals and partners in saving the world from Square Man’s twisted designs. From Puddleville, Ga., and Brooklyn, N.Y., the two are transported to Planet Square along with Lucy’s ice-block manufacturing father, Buddy Moon, and Flor’s pie-making friend, Dr. Pi, who guards the Spiral. They befriend their lobster guard, Red Eye, escape thanks to the relationship between golden rectangles and spirals, travel through several worlds and convert their captor. Rather than building to a climax, the contrived plot collapses, leaving the wooden characters back in Georgia, asleep. The author tells, rather than showing, recapping the back stories in lengthy summaries and describing her characters rather than revealing their attributes through their actions. In spite of some foreshadowing early on, Flor’s particular superpower comes as a surprise, and the dialogue does not ring true. A barely concealed message about the consequences of bullying is likely to be lost on readers, if they get that far.
Skip. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4169-8042-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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