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
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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