“Sammy Feral = dude supreme!” he crows at the end. Forcibly engineered as his ultimate triumph is, he merits a few howls of...
Readers afflicted only with pesky sibs should count their blessings: 12-year-old Sammy comes home one day to find his whole family (dog included) turned into a pack of ravening werewolves.
Sammy is saved from being bitten himself, or maybe torn apart, by the timely arrival of Donny, a leather-clad cryptozoologist who shoots tranquilizer darts from a silver blowpipe and explains that the werewolves will revert to (more or less, as it happens) human once the full moon has passed. Fortunately, Sammy’s parents own a public zoo with behind-the-scenes transit cages that can hold the feral Ferals temporarily. Unfortunately, even back in human form, Sammy’s little sister, Natty, retains a taste for raw sausage and live hamster. Can Sammy devise a cure for the Were Virus before the next full moon—while also fending off professor Pickitt, a rival cryptozoologist scheming to turn the Feral Zoo into a display of freaky creatures? Sammy chronicles his plunge into “wackoville” in diarylike entries punctuated with bulleted lists, shocked exclamations of “rewind!” and simple line drawings of the cast and selected scenes.
“Sammy Feral = dude supreme!” he crows at the end. Forcibly engineered as his ultimate triumph is, he merits a few howls of appreciation for staying so resolutely on task. (Adventure. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62365-032-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Mobius
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits.
Who needs dragons when there are Terrible Lizards to be fought?
Having recklessly boasted to King Arthur and the court that he’d slain 40 dragons, Sir Erec can hardly refuse when Merlin offers him more challenging foes…and so it is that in no time (so to speak), Erec, with bookish Sir Hector, the silent and enigmatic Black Knight, and blustering Sir Bors with his thin but doughty squire, Mel, in tow, are hewing away at fearsome creatures sporting natural armor and weapons every bit as effective as knightly ones. Happily, while all the glorious mashing and bashing leads to awesome feats aplenty—who would suspect that a ravening T. Rex could be decked by a well-placed punch to the jaw?—when the dust settles neither bloodshed nor permanent injury has been dealt to either side. Better yet, not even the stunning revelation that two of the Three Stooges–style bumblers aren’t what they seem (“Anyone else here a girl?”) keeps the questers from developing into a well-knit team capable of repeatedly saving one another’s bacon. Phelan endows the all-white human cast with finely drawn, eloquently expressive faces but otherwise works in a loose, movement-filled style, pitting his clanking crew against an almost nonstop onslaught of toothy monsters in a monochrome mix of single scenes and occasional wordless sequential panels.
Epic—in plot, not length—and as wise and wonderful as Gerald Morris’ Arthurian exploits. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268623-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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