This entomological adventure celebrates teamwork and girl power.
Two preteen girl superheroes struggle with their personal differences and contend with a diabolical geriatric.
In this second episode of the Bug Girl series, aside from training together, seventh-graders Emily (who still has not found her superhero moniker) and Bug Girl/Amanda are far from a happy duo. In school, Emily is obsessed with popularity, while Amanda is way more interested in its entomology club. Amanda is extremely concerned about the creature living in the town’s grotesquely polluted lake, but Emily wants little more than to be queen of the upcoming dance. Amanda’s superpowers, among them flight and a protective exoskeleton, spur Emily’s jealousy, as her abilities are seemingly lackluster. Meanwhile, the school’s passel of upper-echelon girls is dwindling as they begin to disappear. There’s also a new student, Geri, who ups the ante on how to be a mean girl, dishing out fashion-violation tickets and otherwise bullying relentlessly. There’s also something about Geri that makes Amanda’s antennae tingle. Each chapter begins with a quirky bug fact, and the plentiful illustrations are a nod to superhero comics. The key characters appear to be white. Told in the third person primarily from Amanda’s perspective, the hijinks and variety of comical ne’er-do-wells combine to make a case that envy may be the most venomous evil of all.
This entomological adventure celebrates teamwork and girl power. (Adventure. 7-12)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-10663-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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