Stories of time travel have appealed to readers for generations. Self-hypnosis, machines, time warps, and countless other devices have propelled heroes into amazing adventures. Thirteen-year-old Joe Stoshack has a unique method. He can travel back to any time period by holding on to an appropriate antique baseball card. Using this device, he has met Honus Wagner, Jackie Robinson, and Babe Ruth. In this fourth installment in the series, he travels to the year 1919, when America is reeling from the losses of The Great War, and even more so from the influenza epidemic that has killed millions, and when baseball is nearly destroyed as a result of the notorious “Black Sox Scandal.” Our hero “Stosh” overhears notorious gambler Arnold Rothstein and his cronies as they plot with members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. Shoeless Joe Jackson wants no part of the fix. When one of the players gives him $5,000 “on account” from the gamblers, he tries to give it to team owner Comiskey and warn him of what is to come, but he is not believed. Joe plays his heart out, but cannot overcome the maneuvers of those in on the fix. Stosh tries desperately to help Jackson, but he is unable to change the outcome. Jackson will be banned from baseball for life as one of the “eight men out.” In charming subplots, Stosh saves the boy who would be his great uncle by giving him the flu medicine he has carried with him into the past and, by virtue of obtaining rare, authentic autographs from the nearly illiterate Jackson, he saves his friend’s business when he returns to his own time. Gutman keeps the action fast-paced and exciting. He creates a strong sense of time and place, using photographs and newspaper clippings, as well as Stosh’s acute observations, in a neat interweaving of fact and fantasy. In an afterword, he sets the record straight by clearly distinguishing the two elements. An entertaining romp that will appeal to those who love baseball, history, and fantasy. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-029253-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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