Interactive adventure book full of historical facts—though not for the faint of heart.
Fear of death propels readers to escape the sinking Titanic in this doodle-your-own-adventure book.
Onboard the Titanic, “you” must choose one of three potential characters: a second-class passenger (male, European descent), a crew member (male, race unspecified), and a stowaway (gender and race unspecified), and try to escape the ship’s doomed maiden voyage. As “you” doodle on, punch through, tear, and fold the pages, “you” encounter historical figures such as J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line, and Capt. Edward John Smith (both male and white) and learn about the many decisions that condemned the Titanic to failure. Doyle ups the ante in choosing the correct path as death lurks around every corner. Drowning, freezing to death, and drifting off into the cold night are only a few of the tragic endings waiting for those who aren’t expert “escapologists.” However, with the guidance of a helpful gopher (an actual animal) that returns “you” to the last checkpoint, “you” get multiple chances of avoiding demise. With more tragic than happy endings, this book might seem a cavalier take on a catastrophic event to readers who don’t appreciate graphic descriptions of death and dying, punctuated as it is with exercises such as drawing “a bowl of cold and slimy noodles on a passenger’s head” and pretending to tap out “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain!” on Sax’s lineup of partially filled wineglasses. The three difficulty levels show the socio-economic dynamics of maritime travel in 1914, giving fewer chances of survival to stowaways and crew members.
Interactive adventure book full of historical facts—though not for the faint of heart. (Adventure/novelty. 10-13)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-64420-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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