A story with old-fashioned flavor, not always in good ways.
A child queen seeks to extend her rule.
Juniper was merely the princess of Torr until she requested and received a (temporary) country for her 13th birthday (Princess Juniper of the Hourglass, 2015). She and her subjects (a handful of kids) have worked for the past three weeks making Queen’s Basin an idyllic settlement. Now, tracking down horse thieves, Juniper comes face to face with the Anju, a tribe that was her late mother’s family, community, and culture. This “reclusive mountain tribe” has just lost its “chieftain,” and because Juniper’s a blood relation, she’s eligible to enter their competitive trials to become their new chieftain. The series’ central premise of Juniper-as-ruler—which in Hourglass reads harmlessly, charmingly like children’s playacting—goes too far here. While neither culture is specified as dark-skinned (and the cover illustration represents Juniper as white), Paquette’s indigenous coding of the Anju gives Juniper’s desire to rule them—and her success at winning that rule—a whiff of settler colonialism. Although Juniper’s half-Anju by blood, she’s an outsider by experience, and she plans to overrule Anju values by using this explicitly “peaceful tribe” as an “army” of “warriors” to oust Torr’s conquerors. In the end, Juniper decides not to keep the chieftaincy she wins, so even the Anju’s right to self-rule is Juniper’s decision.
A story with old-fashioned flavor, not always in good ways. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17152-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
File under “laugh riot.”
A rogue spell-check program’s bid to transform all life-forms into that eminently useful office item, the paper clip, touches off a fresh round of lunar lunacy.
Predicated on the entirely reasonable premise that eliminating all spelling and grammar errors everywhere would logically lead to the necessity of exterminating carbon-based life in the universe, this third series entry combines high stakes with daffy banter and daring exploits. CheckMate—a chipper, jumped-up editing program—has invented the Transmogratron, a giant laser that will fulfill its ultimate goals in both the cyber world and “meatspace.” Facing challenges as random as prankster lunar unicorns and a disarmingly motherly Motherboard, scowling First Cat joins a motley crew of diversely carbon- and silicon-based allies, led by the pearlescent Queen of the Moon. They’re in a race to the finish—diverted occasionally by, for instance, a relentlessly punny comic-book interlude featuring a pair of literal and figurative Pool Sharks. They ultimately triumph thanks to teamwork and moxie. Following a celebratory party and toasts to “new friends…and steadfast comrades” (and, of course, “MEOW”), the story’s energetic, brightly colored panels close with a reveal of the next volume. (“I always hate it when comics end by announcing a sequel. SO CRINGE!” declares an authorial stand-in.) It can’t come too soon.
File under “laugh riot.” (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063315280
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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