A whirlwind of an environmentally minded tale with lessons about both animals and people.
A 12-year-old boy travels the world on a mission to document endangered species in Schaffter’s middle-grade adventure.
Armando Garduño, nicknamed “Armando Armadillo” by his friend Jinny because of his shy nature, is spending the summer in London with his eccentric grandmother Granny D while his father fights an oil spill in British Columbia. Armando and Granny D are meant to be VIPs at the launch of the newest edition of the Amazing Animal Race, a globe-trotting photography contest, but instead they go rogue and sign up to join the game without Armando’s father’s knowledge (his mother disappeared while participating in the race when the boy was only 4). The duo travels across seven countries in 70 days to photograph endangered species while battling contestants like the villainous Max McCoy and the suspicious Professor Higginbottom. The excitement of retracing his mother’s footsteps sweeps Armando off his feet, but he remains anxious from the outset. (“Did I just join a perilous, seventy-day race around the world with a wacky grandmother I hardly knew?”) The fast-paced narrative takes Armando and Granny D from a dangerous encounter with a mama polar bear in Greenland to a hot air balloon accident in Kenya to an emotionally poignant experience in Brazil as Armando learns to stand up for himself and what he believes in, be it the importance of his mother’s legacy or the value of protecting endangered animals all over the world. In her debut middle-grade novel, Schaffter delivers an exciting international adventure for young environmentalists and conservationists. The book acknowledges problems with its own conceit—Armando points out that the race means added airplane emissions in the atmosphere, which can harm the very animals he’s trying to save—and models how activists can always push to do more. Snippets from Armando’s mother’s journal, accompanied by many line drawings and maps by illustrators Morales, Didkova, and Robinson, effectively communicate zoological facts in media res.
A whirlwind of an environmentally minded tale with lessons about both animals and people.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 97810690795
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Sea Otter Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasing premise for book lovers.
A fantasy-loving bookworm makes a wonderful, terrible bargain.
When sixth grader Poppy Woodlock’s historic preservationist parents move the family to the Oregon coast to work on the titular stately home, Poppy’s sure she’ll find magic. Indeed, the exiled water nymph in the manor’s ruined swimming pool grants a wish, but: “Magic isn’t free. It cosssts.” The price? Poppy’s favorite book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In return she receives Sampson, a winged lion cub who is everything Poppy could have hoped for. But she soon learns that the nymph didn’t take just her own physical book—she erased Narnia from Poppy’s world. And it’s just the first loss: Soon, Poppy’s grandmother’s journal’s gone, then The Odyssey, and more. The loss is heartbreaking, but Sampson’s a wonderful companion, particularly as Poppy’s finding middle school a tough adjustment. Hartman’s premise is beguiling—plenty of readers will identify with Poppy, both as a fellow bibliophile and as a kid struggling to adapt. Poppy’s repeatedly expressed faith that unveiling Sampson will bring some sort of vindication wears thin, but that does not detract from the central drama. It’s a pity that the named real-world books Poppy reads are notably lacking in diversity; a story about the power of literature so limited in imagination lets both itself and readers down. Main characters are cued White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. Chapters open with atmospheric spot art. (This review has been updated to reflect the final illustrations.)
A pleasing premise for book lovers. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780316448222
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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
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