A solid adventure threaded through with spiritual undercurrents. (Fiction. 8-12)
Is there a demon hiding in a Catskills monastery?
When a friendly and protective Tibetan mastiff appears out of nowhere, 12-year-old Jax names him Mo-Mo and takes him in temporarily in spite of her anxious mother’s reservations. Instantly inseparable, they hike up the mountain above her house to investigate a light in what Jax thought was an abandoned building. There, they meet Yeshi, a boy her age, and his teacher, an elderly monk named Jampa Rinpoche, who have come from Tibet to reopen the monastery built nearly 30 years earlier and to celebrate the return of Rinpoche’s teacher. Kimmel, author of the Dalai Lama biography Boy on the Lion Throne (2009), among other titles, creatively and effectively weaves Buddhist teachings as well as a bit of Tibetan history into the rapidly unfolding plot. Yeshi and Jax urgently search for the 11th-century statue of a protector demon called Tsiu Marpo, stolen from a monastery in Tibet, suspecting a suspicious and dangerous red-haired man is in pursuit. Mentioned in a 14th-century prophecy as “an object of unimaginable power,” the statue may also contain a priceless treasure. Suspenseful and absorbing, particularly when the kids are trying to decode the language in the prophecy, the story also nicely describes how Jax carries over the lessons from her new friends into her everyday family life.
A solid adventure threaded through with spiritual undercurrents. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-60369-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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