A zany, rollicking series opener.
An inventor’s daughter must stop a plot targeting New York City’s World’s Fair in 1883.
Molly Pepper and her widowed mother, Cassandra Pepper, both white, live in their pickle shop while Cassandra creates inventions in the back room. They want to debut Cassandra’s flying machine at the 1883 World Fair, but the Inventor’s Guild, which limits its membership to men, has taken all the exhibition spots. A madcap scheme to find a way into the fair results in an impromptu break-in at the guild’s building, where Molly meets Chinese immigrant Emmett Lee—and where she discovers evidence that indicates that Alexander Graham Bell is scheming to attack the fair with a death machine! Molly and Cassandra conclude that the best way to get the attention that Cassandra and her inventions deserve is for them to become heroes by saving the fair, leading them on a ridiculous journey packed with chase scenes, red herrings, mobsters, monologue-prone villains, and inventions. Besides famous real-life male inventors, important female inventors, including African-American Sarah Goode, also appear, in a secret cabal with a punny (and inevitable) name. The humor ranges from clever wordplay to running gags and cartoonish slapstick. Weaving throughout the outlandish mystery and entertaining wackiness, period gender and racial discrimination experienced by women and Chinese people are mined for tension. Molly’s unintentional microaggressions and Emmett’s status in the face of the Chinese Exclusion Act are both timely elements.
A zany, rollicking series opener. (author’s note) (Historical fantasy. 8-14)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-234197-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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