Readers with a hankering for a modern, Midwest animal tale could do worse.
Eleven-year-old Princess desperately wants a pet, but her father says animals on a farm must earn their keep.
With her dad away in Iraq, her mother busy with work and her older half-sister Monica busy being 16, “P” (which she prefers over Princess) tries to make the cow-herding dog Blackie a pet, but he won’t listen to her. When Blackie kills a possum, P finds it was a mother and adopts the surviving baby despite her father’s rule. With the help of her best friend Mart, P keeps “Ike” a secret from teachers and family while trying to teach him to be a wild possum (since her wounded father will be home soon). With rabies running rampant in the Oklahoma countryside and catastrophes coming fast and furious, can P do right by her charge and keep the farm ready for her father’s return? Blom’s debut is a run-of-the-mill wild-animal–as-pet tale, though the deployed-father element makes it plenty relevant today. There’s a slight disconnect between the vocabulary used to relate this folksy story and the first-person narrator’s difficulties in school and with letter writing, but P is a feisty, honest country gal.
Readers with a hankering for a modern, Midwest animal tale could do worse. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2331-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
File under “laugh riot.”
A rogue spell-check program’s bid to transform all life-forms into that eminently useful office item, the paper clip, touches off a fresh round of lunar lunacy.
Predicated on the entirely reasonable premise that eliminating all spelling and grammar errors everywhere would logically lead to the necessity of exterminating carbon-based life in the universe, this third series entry combines high stakes with daffy banter and daring exploits. CheckMate—a chipper, jumped-up editing program—has invented the Transmogratron, a giant laser that will fulfill its ultimate goals in both the cyber world and “meatspace.” Facing challenges as random as prankster lunar unicorns and a disarmingly motherly Motherboard, scowling First Cat joins a motley crew of diversely carbon- and silicon-based allies, led by the pearlescent Queen of the Moon. They’re in a race to the finish—diverted occasionally by, for instance, a relentlessly punny comic-book interlude featuring a pair of literal and figurative Pool Sharks. They ultimately triumph thanks to teamwork and moxie. Following a celebratory party and toasts to “new friends…and steadfast comrades” (and, of course, “MEOW”), the story’s energetic, brightly colored panels close with a reveal of the next volume. (“I always hate it when comics end by announcing a sequel. SO CRINGE!” declares an authorial stand-in.) It can’t come too soon.
File under “laugh riot.” (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063315280
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Epic lunacy.
Will extragalactic rats eat the moon?
Can a cybernetic toenail clipper find a worthy purpose in the vast universe? Will the first feline astronaut ever get a slice of pizza? Read on. Reworked from the Live Cartoon series of homespun video shorts released on Instagram in 2020 but retaining that “we’re making this up as we go” quality, the episodic tale begins with the electrifying discovery that our moon is being nibbled away. Off blast one strong, silent, furry hero—“Meow”—and a stowaway robot to our nearest celestial neighbor to hook up with the imperious Queen of the Moon and head toward the dark side, past challenges from pirates on the Sea of Tranquility and a sphinx with a riddle (“It weighs a ton, but floats on air. / It’s bald but has a lot of hair.” The answer? “Meow”). They endure multiple close but frustratingly glancing encounters with pizza and finally deliver the malign, multiheaded Rat King and its toothy armies to a suitable fate. Cue the massive pizza party! Aside from one pirate captain and a general back on Earth, the human and humanoid cast in Harris’ loosely drawn cartoon panels, from the appropriately moon-faced queen on, is light skinned. Merch, music, and the original episodes are available on an associated website.
Epic lunacy. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308408-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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