by Tracy Mack & Michael Citrin & illustrated by Greg Ruth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2006
In a fresh go at an angle taken by Robert Newman back in the ’80s, Mack and Citrin present a hitherto-undocumented case from the point of view of the squad of street children Holmes occasionally employed. Here, the theft of a hidden treasure from Buckingham Palace and the deaths of three high-wire acrobats in a seeming accident are linked and the culprits identified. This is thanks to sharp detective work by lead urchin Wiggins; his new young associate Ozzy, an asthmatic, newly orphaned apprentice forger; and (to the discomposure of the misogynistic Holmes) Pilar, a Romany fortuneteller’s daughter with the handy ability to read lips. The authors fold in plenty of characters and references from the Holmes canon, as well as an embedded code that hints at sequels. They close with various notes on period hats, transportation and other topics. Comics artist Ruth provides a few atmospheric illustrations to this fast-paced, authentically styled caper. (cast list, endpaper map) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-439-82836-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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by Katherine Rundell ; illustrated by Charles Santoso ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 27, 2019
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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by Trenton Lee Stewart & illustrated by Carson Ellis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2007
Low in physical violence, while being rich in moral and ethical issues, as well as in appealingly complex characters and...
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-316-05777-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
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