Stone-cold predictable but with enough silliness to keep sliding along.
Art-loving cave lad Lug again saves his clan (and several others too) from the twin menaces of climate change and bad guys.
As if the arrival of snow and saber-toothed tigers in series opener Dawn of the Ice Age (2014) weren’t upsetting enough, here comes a mountain of ice moving with suspicious speed and precision toward the homes of the Macrauchenia Rider and Boar Rider clans. Riding out atop friendly mammoth Woolly to investigate, Lug and pals find both a glacier riddled with tunnels and Blast, a weirdly white-skinned frozen boy who, when thawed out, offers the glacier as a mobile shelter for the threatened locals. But the sight of exiled thug Bonehead working with Blast hints that all is not as it seems—and indeed, the whole setup turns out to be an ongoing scheme to rob prehistoric communities of their livestock. Can Lug stop Blast and his cronies (and the glacier), free the captive villagers imprisoned at the mountain’s bottom, and maybe even rescue the cub that Blast has kidnapped to keep the resident polar bears in line? Natch! By the end all’s made right, he’s found a new friend in equally artistic Boaga (described as “dark-skinned” with “frizzy black hair and almond-shaped eyes”), and even lost at least some of his pathological fear of animals. Gerardi dresses modern-looking kids in crude furs for the cartoon illustrations.
Stone-cold predictable but with enough silliness to keep sliding along. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5124-0641-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that...
Antics both instructive and embarrassing ensue after a mysterious package left on their doorstep brings a Founding Father into the lives of two modern children.
Summoned somehow by what looks for all the world like an old-time crystal radio set, Ben Franklin turns out to be an amiable sort. He is immediately taken in hand by 7-year-old Olive for a tour of modern wonders—early versions of which many, from electrical appliances in the kitchen to the Illinois town’s public library and fire department, he justly lays claim to inventing. Meanwhile big brother Nolan, 10, tags along, frantic to return him to his own era before either their divorced mom or snoopy classmate Tommy Tuttle sees him. Fleming, author of Ben Franklin’s Almanac (2003) (and also, not uncoincidentally considering the final scene of this outing, Our Eleanor, 2005), mixes history with humor as the great man dispenses aphorisms and reminiscences through diverse misadventures, all of which end well, before vanishing at last. Following a closing, sequel-cueing kicker (see above) she then separates facts from fancies in closing notes, with print and online leads to more of the former. To go with spot illustrations of the evidently all-white cast throughout the narrative, Fearing incorporates change-of-pace sets of sequential panels for Franklin’s biographical and scientific anecdotes. Final illustrations not seen.
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that adds flavor without weight. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93406-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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