A well-written blend of education and entertainment, with relatable young protagonists and a deft 21st-century twist on...
In this lively and inventive e-book, five canyoneering young friends shift into detective mode when they stumble upon a mystery rooted in Native American history.
Middle schooler Freddie Tanaka is stumped. His creative writing assignment on Southern California’s indigenous Tongva people isn’t going so well. “All my ideas start out OK, but then they spin out of control,” he says: restaurants, lasers, aliens, and Star Wars references keep creeping into his stories. A hike in nearby Cottonwood Canyon and the discovery of a Tongva cave painting provide not only inspiration, but a mystery for Freddie and his friends to solve: who is out to destroy the painting, and why? Freddie and the other Wiley Kids—Millie Reyes, Kyle Baldwin, Sleater Wiley, and Neil Chandler as well as Sleater’s wise old Gramps (and his ’68 Chevy Suburban)—find themselves on a wild ride through history. A bombing attempt, a sympathetic monk and a Buddhist temple, an elderly former child star, a 103-year-old Tongva chief, a deceptive real estate developer, and assorted other shady characters figure into the vivid plot, as do food trucks, music, movie and TV references, and a recipe for homemade tortillas and tacos. A follow-up to The Wiley Kids in the Mystery of the Cucamonga Moon (2012), this imaginative eco-mystery is both about and “by” the Wiley Kids, young sleuths whose individual talents mesh. To get to the bottom of it all, they use 21st-century technology—smartphones, Google, Twitter, robotics—and their brainpower, eclectic interests, and gifts for creative problem-solving. The well-defined first-person narration alternates among the five friends—“pretty much your average suburban middle-schoolers, except for one thing,” Neil says: “We have a habit of finding ourselves knee-deep in mysteries.” Interactive e-book features embedded throughout include videos, original music, maps, photography, and informational and vocabulary links. As the Wiley Kids (and readers) dig deeper into Tongva history, action enters the danger zone, and after the mystery is solved, Freddie finally writes an engaging, well-informed story. He gets an A; so does this book.
A well-written blend of education and entertainment, with relatable young protagonists and a deft 21st-century twist on historical sleuthing.Pub Date: March 22, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Moxie Industrials Inc.
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
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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