Fans will be happy more adventures are in the offing.
Mr. Penguin and his intrepid band face adventure once more following series opener Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure (2019).
Adventurer Mr. Penguin is once again joined by Colin the kung fu spider, the handy Edith Hedge (a human with an elastic definition of borrowing), and silent pigeon Gordon on a mysterious mission. While attempting to recover the Enigma Stone for Professor Stout-Girdle, the group crash-lands their—urm, borrowed plane on a mountaintop near the tiny snowbound town of Schneedorf-on-the-Peak. Siblings Dieter and Lisle Strudel rescue them from a certain snowy demise and then ask their assistance. There are strange goings-on in the village (all the rodents are vanishing), and the abandoned fortress built by Grandfather Grimm has suddenly come back to life. Can the two occurrences be connected? Can the adventurers and their new kid friends find and rescue the rodents of the town in time for the 32nd International Rodent Games? Who is Dr. Mesmero, and what is her diabolical plan? And will Mr. Penguin ever see Cityville again…or get another fish finger sandwich? Mr. Penguin’s second caper is as silly as the first, and as disappointing in its casting of the only apparent human of color—Edith—as a thief. Pages from Dr. Mesmero’s journal, black-and-white illustrations with pops of orange, and occasional orange pages break up the short chapters.
Fans will be happy more adventures are in the offing. (Adventure. 6-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68263-130-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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