by Warren Ross illustrated by Jade Fang ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A wonderfully imaginative adventure involving a missing toy.
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When a boy’s truck vanishes, replaced by a hockey puck, he longs to know why it disappeared and just where the new object came from in this rhyming picture book.
In this tale, a confused boy looks at the hockey puck that appears where his toy truck is supposed to be. “It sure wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t my mother’s; / it wasn’t my granny’s; it wasn’t my brother’s,” he explains. He tries hooking it up to a radio to analyze it (a book open to a page on UFOs and an interstellar poster in the boy’s treehouse give observant readers two clues about what eventually happens). Luckily, a traveler named Follansbee, who dresses like an old snake-oil salesman, stops by with the answer: when something disappears and another thing pops up in its place, it’s because the Hole Nuther, a curious creature who lives underground, has taken it. Nuthers like new things but always replace the objects they’ve taken, just to be fair. The Nuther, vaguely anteaterlike in shape, sports green and white striped fur and an affable disposition. The boy and Follansbee embark on a plan to entice the Nuther to take something else and return the truck. Unfortunately, the Nuther likes the vehicle as much as the boy misses it. After trying an assortment of treasures (and looking awfully brokenhearted), the boy accepts a gift from Follansbee’s elderly mother: a basket of Druthers, which look like jewel-bright paper cranes, sure to please the Nuther. When the boy wakes just before dawn, the Druthers have grown into glowing pinwheels, leaving a trail to not only the boy’s truck, which “looked better than ever,” but also to the Nuther, who has a final encounter with that hinted-at UFO. While at first the UFOs seem a bit tacked on, the inventive story delivers lots of charm as the plot gets even stranger, especially with all the clues in Fang’s (Tibby and Duckie, 2014) brightly colored images. The detailed, whimsical, and endearing illustrations show the boy experiencing a full spectrum of emotions. Definitely for the 4-to-8 crowd, this book can be read aloud at bedtime. Ross’ (Red Boots and Assorted Things, 2016) text scans smoothly, and beginning independent readers should find plenty of words they recognize among the fun, concocted, or uncommon ones like “Dingledong Dell,” “calaboose,” and “wallaby.”
A wonderfully imaginative adventure involving a missing toy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9903086-1-4
Page Count: 28
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Amy McCulloch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2020
A solid series starter for tinkerers and adventurers alike.
Even robot cats have a mind of their own.
All 12-year-old Canadian Lacey Chu’s ever wanted was to become a companioneer like her idol, Monica Chan, co-founder of the largest tech firm in North America, Moncha Corp., and mastermind behind the baku. Bakus, “robotic pets with all the features of a smartphone,” revolutionized society and how people interact with technology. As a companioneer, Lacey could work on bakus: designing, innovating, and building. When she receives a grant rejection from Profectus Academy of Science and Technology, a school that guarantees employment at Moncha Corp., she’s devastated. A happenstance salvaging of a mangled cat baku might just change the game. Suddenly, Lacey’s got an in with Profectus and is one step closer to her dream. Jinx, however, is not quite like the other bakus—he’s a wild cat that does things without commands. Together with Jinx, Lacey will have to navigate competitive classmates and unsettling corporate secrets. McCulloch effectively strikes a balance between worldbuilding and action. High-stakes baku battles demonstrate the emotional bond between (robotic) pet and owner. Readers will also connect to the relationships the Asian girl forges with her diverse classmates, including a rivalry with Carter (a white boy who’s the son of Moncha’s other co-founder, Eric Smith), a burgeoning crush on student Tobias, who’s black, and evolving friendships new and old. While some mysteries are solved, a cliffhanger ending raises even more for the next installment.
A solid series starter for tinkerers and adventurers alike. (Science fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8374-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
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