by Vegard Svingen translated by Øyvind Skogly Pedersen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 2015
This fanciful children’s book succeeds despite the author’s uneven writing style.
In Svingen’s debut middle-grade novel, 10-year-old Freddy Fumple journeys to a fantastical land called The InBetween where he must help vanquish a horde of destructive creatures called mindmonsters.
When Freddy Fumple and his family move to a new town, his imagination goes haywire. While playing soccer with a group of local schoolkids, he sees two leprechaunlike beings lurking at the edge of the woods. Even more unsettling, his new home is fraught with uncanny phenomena. A pale, ghostly boy named Jonathan has taken up residence in Freddy’s bedroom, and his eccentric neighbor, the Widow Crapette, “talks to the dead.” When Freddy sees the leprechaun creatures again, he follows them into Widow Crapette’s house, where he learns about The InBetween. In The InBetween, creatures like wood nymphs, unicorns, and dragons are common. When Freddy consults Widow Crapette about his ghostly roommate, she advises him to take Jonathan to The InBetween; there, Jonathan can cross over to The Other Side and be reunited with his dead family. During his trip to The InBetween, Freddy learns of the hairy, grotesque creatures known mindmonsters. Fueled by thoughts of people who do not believe in magical creatures, the mindmonsters are wreaking havoc on The InBetween and its residents. The chieftain of The InBetween informs Freddy that he may be the only person capable of destroying the mindmonsters and freeing the citizens of The InBetween. Freddy, Jonathan, and a wood nymph girl called Mili set out on a quest to vanquish the mindmonsters and slimy human villains, Gorespot and Ass. Along the way, Freddy must confront his own cowardice and recognize the value in his splendid imagination. Svingen’s writing style is often unwieldy and occasionally inscrutable, and his liberal use of gratuitous swear words seems out of place in a children’s novel. Like Freddy, this novel is driven by a powerful imagination; the characters and places described in The InBetween are especially whimsical and inventive. Young readers will undoubtedly appreciate the fast-paced narrative and high-stakes action scenes that are interspersed with moments of zany humor.
This fanciful children’s book succeeds despite the author’s uneven writing style.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Vidunderlige Produksjoner
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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