Comfortable formula fiction with a scientific twist.
Following his deceased scientist mother’s legacy, Cruz Coronado has been selected to attend the Explorer Academy, a school that prepares a diverse group of the brightest young budding scientists “To discover. To innovate. To protect.”
Prior to his departure for the academy, while taking one last surf at his favorite Kauai beach, someone tries to pull him under and then mysteriously disappears. His new roommate also notices that a strange man is following Cruz. Strange occurrences arise, the most dangerous when the students are almost killed during a training simulation. Cruz’s pursuer eventually reveals himself, warning him that members of the nefarious Nebula are out to get him due to a secret project his mother had been working on. A cryptic message she left behind may provide a clue to her death—and may save his life. In the meantime, Cruz and his fellow academy recruits learn to navigate secret holographic technology called the CAVE, which prepares them for the terrain they will explore in the real world. This series opener from a new imprint of National Geographic is a fully packed high-tech adventure that offers both cool, educational facts about the planet and a diverse cast of fun characters (Cruz is Mexican-American). The plot, with preteens in a life-threatening mystery, is not new. The package is glitzy enough, with full-color illustrations throughout, that action-craving readers may not mind. “The Truth Behind the Fiction” concluding backmatter grounds the adventure.
Comfortable formula fiction with a scientific twist. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4263-3159-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Under the Stars
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. The fictional plotters—based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells—are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume.
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35902-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds.
Pranksters George and Harold face the deadliest challenge of their checkered careers: a supersmart, superstrong gym teacher.
With the avowed aim of enticing an audience of “grouchy old people” to the Waistband Warrior’s latest exploit, Pilkey promises “references to health care, gardening, Bob Evans restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives.” He delivers, too. But lest fans of the Hanes-clad hero fret, he also stirs in plenty of fart jokes, brain-melting puns, and Flip-O-Rama throwdowns. After a meteorite transforms Mr. Meaner into a mad genius (evil, of course, because “as everyone knows, most gym teachers are inherently evil”) and he concocts a brown gas that turns children into blindly obedient homework machines, George and Harold travel into the future to enlist aid from their presumably immune adult selves. Temporarily leaving mates and children (of diverse sexes, both) behind, Old George and Old Harold come to the rescue. But Meaner has a robot suit (of course he has a robot suit), and he not only beats down the oldsters, but is only fazed for a moment when Capt. Underpants himself comes to deliver a kick to the crotch. Fortunately, gym teachers, “like toddlers,” will put anything in their mouths—so an ingestion of soda pop and Mentos at last spells doom, or more accurately: “CHeffGoal-D’BLOOOM!”
Another epic outing in a graphic hybrid series that continues not just to push the envelope, but tear it to shreds. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-50492-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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