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THE BOY WHO LIVED WITH DRAGONS

Silly and sweet, with a throwback feel.

Growing dragons cause mischief to flourish.

Young Tomas guards an important secret: a dragon fruit tree in his Grandad’s garden sprouts fruit that hatches into actual, living dragons. Tomas’ dragon, Flicker, is his small, constant companion and can change into a dazzling rainbow of colors. His best friends—Ted, Kat, and Kai—also have dragons that possess their own special abilities, like breathing ice. While the kids try to keep their wily winged pets concealed, the dragons cause silly mayhem. But soon, as more strange events occur, the group begins to wonder: Could their nemesis, Liam, also have a dragon? Once Liam’s ulterior motives are uncovered, Tomas and his friends must stop him before his ego threatens the safety of their own dragons. Shepherd’s feel-good friendship tale has an endearingly nostalgic feel as the gang adventures, hangs out, and cracks jokes with nary an electronic doodad in sight. The outdoors factors in prominently, with gentle warnings about the harm done by pesticides. This follow-up to The Boy Who Grew Dragons (2020) is an accessible jumping-in point for new readers, providing enough worldbuilding (and well-timed potty humor) to be inviting. Ogilvie’s black-and-white illustrations are absolutely adorable and, coupled with the clever marginalia (such as pages that appear singed), make for heightened visual interest. Most characters read as White; Ted has darker skin and curly black hair.

Silly and sweet, with a throwback feel. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Pub Date: March 23, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-4998-1178-0

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Yellow Jacket

Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021

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WRECKING BALL

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

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

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THE MILLICENT QUIBB SCHOOL OF ETIQUETTE FOR YOUNG LADIES OF MAD SCIENCE

Fiercely feisty and unapologetically goofy.

Three young girls are tasked with saving their town from a vicious worm.

This romp from actor McKinnon introduces the three Porch girls: Gertrude, age 12 and three-quarters, Eugenia, age 12 and one-eighth, and Dee-Dee, age 11. Cared for by Aunt Desdemona and Uncle Ansel (along with their seven cousins, who are all named Lavinia), they’re forced to live in a ramshackle shed at the edge of the property. In a classic turn of events, the sisters are invited to a new school run by a certain Millicent Quibb. Under Quibb’s eccentric tutelage, the trio learn that the nefarious Krenetics Research Association, hoping to release their founder, Talon Sharktūth, from his vault, has bred a Kyrgalops, a vicious stone- and puppy-chomping worm, which may destroy their entire town. McKinnon’s middle-grade debut is grandiosely silly, reminiscent of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events in both its sesquipedalian language and tone and in relying heavily on its bespoke lexicon, verbal gymnastics, and cheeky footnotes to deliver jokes. Interspersed throughout are bits of visual interest—poems and songs, schematics, and bits of correspondence. Though the action rockets along at a Pixy Stix–fueled pace, many questions are left unanswered or unaddressed, making this series opener exposition heavy and a bit frustrating. Still, readers will ultimately be left hopeful that subsequent volumes will offer something meatier. The illustrations cue some diversity of skin tone among the characters.

Fiercely feisty and unapologetically goofy. (map, afterword, appendices) (Adventure. 8-12)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9780316554732

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

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