In this terrific salute to those who fulfilled that eternal human urge to take to the skies, Zaunders skips the Wright Brothers and Earhart in favor of some lesser-known pioneers of the air. There’s the Montgolfier brothers, who invented the hot-air balloon in the 18th century and flew in it for Louis XVI; Alberto Santos-Dumont, whose European aircraft was called the Infuriated Grasshopper in 1906; and Beryl Markham, who flew “west with the night” from Abingdon, England, to Newfoundland. Readers learn from the introduction that John Damian, an Italian in 16th-century Scotland, tried to fly with wings made of chicken feathers, and that Cal Rogers, who flew across the US first, named his plane the Vin Fiz after the grape drink of the company that sponsored him. The prose is as lively and spirited as the characters—what child won’t be enchanted by the story of Wrong-Way Corrigan?—and Munro’s energetic and spiffily detailed images are just right. (Collective biography. 8-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46466-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The whimsy is slight—the story is not—and both its interest and its vocabulary are for the youngest members of this age...
Beverly Cleary has written all kinds of books (the most successful ones about the irrepressible Henry Huggins) but this is her first fantasy.
Actually it's plain clothes fantasy grounded in the everyday—except for the original conceit of a mouse who can talk and ride a motorcycle. A toy motorcycle, which belongs to Keith, a youngster, who comes to the hotel where Ralph lives with his family; Ralph and Keith become friends, Keith gives him a peanut butter sandwich, but finally Ralph loses the motorcycle—it goes out with the dirty linen. Both feel dreadfully; it was their favorite toy; but after Keith gets sick, and Ralph manages to find an aspirin for him in a nearby room, and the motorcycle is returned, it is left with Ralph....
The whimsy is slight—the story is not—and both its interest and its vocabulary are for the youngest members of this age group. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 1965
ISBN: 0380709244
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1965
BOOK TO SCREEN
All aboooooard!
Mbalia takes the legacy of Pullman porters as inspiration for his latest fantasy world rooted in Black lore and traditions in this series opener.
Twelve-year-old Jax Freeman is an unwilling transplant to Chicago, sent away from his Raleigh, North Carolina, home by his parents after an incident lands him in the juvenile justice system. Just about as soon as he descends from the train, the weirdness starts: Inanimate objects speak to him, a strange old woman tells him his ancestors need him, and a terrifying creature tries to steal his skin. The strangeness keeps building, from the inspirational signs at his grandmother’s house that keep changing their messages to the class in…magic?…at DuSable Middle School. And what’s with the peculiar reactions he gets whenever people learn his surname? Pretty soon Jax is riding a magic train called the Shriek, charged with a mission to heal a feud among the five magical summoning families of Chicago—a mission that killed his great-great-grandfather. Jax spends most of the novel in a state of frustration as he tries to understand this new world, and readers may sympathize as they wait with him for other characters to dole out information. Mbalia has so much fun developing the world’s rules and inhabitants, though, that readers will probably not mind the adventure’s bagginess. Jax has a digressive narrative style that runs to broad comedy, but it’s his fundamental decency that really shines.
All aboooooard! (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781368064736
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Freedom Fire/Disney
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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