Short but powerful, with edge-of-your-seat suspense, this is one journey that should remain in readers’ memories.
A 12-year-old girl tries to fight off hungry wolves in this survival story.
Living in rural Alaska, Sloan doesn’t do well in school but already excels as a hunter. However, after spending five days lost in the woods several years earlier, she is deaf in one ear and fears being alone. Her father tries to toughen her up by leaving her alone while he takes a trip into town, but a neighbor’s accident means Sloan, her teacher, a friend, and his bad-guy dad must take her to town for a doctor. The group (all of whom appear to be white) ventures into the winter woods without adequate supplies and almost immediately realizes that the local wolf pack is following them. Although wolves rarely attack humans, these have been cut off from their natural prey and clearly see the humans as food. With far too little ammo, Sloan and her party must outrun and outwit the wolves if they are going to make it through to safety. Scott has done her research on wolves (as detailed in her author’s note) and writes from a naturalist’s perspective, never demonizing them but portraying them as highly dangerous nevertheless. Her insights into Sloan’s insecurities will ring true to many readers, while others will just enjoy the survival story.
Short but powerful, with edge-of-your-seat suspense, this is one journey that should remain in readers’ memories. (Adventure. 8-14)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-04358-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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