Despite the meandering storyline, fans of the two previous slapstick adventures will eagerly welcome back Lupe and the...
The over-the-top lowriders Lupe, Elirio, and Flapjack are back with their gato, Genie.
This nostalgic journey back in time chronicles, in parallel stories, the moment the lives of the then escuincles—pipsqueaks—first intersected. They join together to help Lupe’s two mothers enter a car show, but Mamá Impala and Mamá Gazelle need the approval of the hosting car club. The bullies controlling the entire show, Los Matamoscas, make up arbitrary rules to keep the women out because everyone knows car clubs are for los machos. Lupe’s moms’ car must clear speed bumps without scraping, they must keep a 5-gallon jar of agua fresca from spilling while taking an entire lap, and any visible brush strokes on the paint job are grounds for disqualification. All is saved by Elirio’s pointy proboscis, Lupe’s quick thinking, and Flapjack’s slurping capacity. Raúl the Third’s signature style again frenetically populates the sepia pages with eye-catching detail that highlights lowrider humor and culture. Camper’s story, however, trips, snags, and hitches on too many densely worded moments of exposition. These asides, such as the recognition of Indigenous words in modern languages and the contributions of the art collective Asco, would have been more appropriately placed in the backmatter (where they are discussed again anyway) rather than in the middle of the narrative. Also, some scenes are unnecessarily drawn out, as in the case of the opening five and a half pages of gratuitous flatulence.
Despite the meandering storyline, fans of the two previous slapstick adventures will eagerly welcome back Lupe and the gang’s Spanish-infused exploits. (glossary, author’s notes, sources) (Graphic adventure. 9-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6315-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read.
Will a bully always be a bully?
That’s the question eighth-grade football captain Chase Ambrose has to answer for himself after a fall from his roof leaves him with no memory of who and what he was. When he returns to Hiawassee Middle School, everything and everyone is new. The football players can hardly wait for him to come back to lead the team. Two, Bear Bratsky and Aaron Hakimian, seem to be special friends, but he’s not sure what they share. Other classmates seem fearful; he doesn’t know why. Temporarily barred from football because of his concussion, he finds a new home in the video club and, over time, develops a new reputation. He shoots videos with former bullying target Brendan Espinoza and even with Shoshanna Weber, who’d hated him passionately for persecuting her twin brother, Joel. Chase voluntarily continues visiting the nursing home where he’d been ordered to do community service before his fall, making a special friend of a decorated Korean War veteran. As his memories slowly return and he begins to piece together his former life, he’s appalled. His crimes were worse than bullying. Will he become that kind of person again? Set in the present day and told in the alternating voices of Chase and several classmates, this finding-your-middle-school-identity story explores provocative territory. Aside from naming conventions, the book subscribes to the white default.
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05377-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
