Myers once again offers a story of smart kids living out their middle school days as Cruisers “on the high seas of life.”...
The fourth installment of the Cruisers series finds Zander Scott and friends unwittingly involved in an international investigation.
Zander, Bobbi, LaShonda and Kambui are middle school students at Harlem’s Da Vinci Academy for the Gifted and Talented. Their alternative newspaper, The Cruiser, came in third on the School Journalism Association’s list of best school newspapers. Good for them, not so good for Ashley Schmidt, editor of Da Vinci’s official newspaper, The Palette, which received no recognition. “I’m going to bury you and your stupid newspaper!” hisses Ashley, who’s planning on a monthly reprinting of 200 words from the British newspaper the Guardian to borrow a bit of glory. Zander decides to do the same and somehow thinks it’s a good idea to tell the folks at London’s Phoenix School about the pictures Kambui took that place their “Genius Gangsta” friend Phat Tony at the mall when a robbery occurred there. Tony denies being at the mall, and the Cruisers haven’t told anyone else about the pictures, so the British school contacts Scotland Yard, and now Zander and company may be in big trouble. As with the previous three installments, this sparkles with intelligent dialogue and clever banter, all while advancing a story in which Zander ponders journalism, academics, girls, and even the Fibonacci sequence and the grand design of the universe.
Myers once again offers a story of smart kids living out their middle school days as Cruisers “on the high seas of life.” (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-439-91629-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable...
Melding the colors of heartache and loss with painterly strokes, Burg creates a vivid work of art about a girl grieving for her recently deceased mother against a Third World backdrop.
Clare is not speaking to her father. She has vowed never to speak to him again. Which could be tough, since the pair just touched down in Malawi. There, Clare finds herself struck by the contrast between American wealth and the relatively bare-bones existence of her new friends. Drowning in mourning and enraged at the emptiness of grief, Clare is a hurricane of early-adolescent emotions. Her anger toward her father crackles like lightning in the treetops. She finds purpose, though, in teaching English to the younger children, which leads her out of grief. Burg’s imagery shimmers. “The girl talks to her mother in a language that sounds like fireworks, full of bursts and pops. She holds her hand over her mouth giggling.... She probably has so many minutes with her mother, she can’t even count them.” Her realization of the setting and appreciation for the Malawian people are so successful that they compensate for Clare's wallowing, which sometimes feels contrived.
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable disparities. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-73471-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula.
In honor of its 25th anniversary, a Disney Halloween horror/comedy film gets a sequel to go with its original novelization.
Three Salem witches hanged in 1693 for stealing a child’s life force are revived in 1993 when 16-year-old new kid Max completes a spell by lighting a magical candle (which has to be kindled by a virgin to work). Max and dazzling, popular classmate Allison have to keep said witches at bay until dawn to save all of the local children from a similar fate. Fast-forward to 2018: Poppy, daughter of Max and Allison, inadvertently works a spell that sends her parents and an aunt to hell in exchange for the gleeful witches. With help from her best friend, Travis, and classmate Isabella, on whom she has a major crush, Poppy has only hours to keep the weird sisters from working more evil. The witches, each daffier than the last, supply most of the comedy as well as plenty of menace but end up back in the infernal regions. There’s also a talking cat, a talking dog, a gaggle of costumed heroines, and an oblique reference to a certain beloved Halloween movie. Traditional Disney wholesomeness is spiced, not soured, by occasional innuendo and a big twist in the sequel. Poppy and her family are white, while Travis and Isabella are both African-American.
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula. (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-02003-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Freeform/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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