There’s nothing like inheriting a previously unsuspected family curse to add spice to an ordinary life, as young Jack discovers when a distant grand uncle dies. Suddenly, his strait-laced teacher, his routine-loving dentist dad and other adults are being temporarily transformed into leering, well-armed, larger-than-life pirates with names like Hellfire Drake or Tortuga Anna, and coming after Jack in revenge for a 300-year-old betrayal. Rossell moves the tale along briskly, supplying Jack with both an ancient, talkative parrot to fill in the backstory—and to provide jolly commentary on each successive attack: “Ha ha ha, they’re after you now, shipmate!”—as well as a generous fund of native wit that comes in handy once he realizes that there’s no way he’s going to best his assailants in a physical contest. By the end, Jack triumphs, and even finds a way to lay the curse to rest—but the pirate ghosts aren’t completely gone, as all of the grown-ups who hosted them are showing uncharacteristic streaks of wildness. Well-stocked with funny characters and situations, here’s a rousing tale for all young hearties, with outstanding read-aloud potential to boot. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8027-9661-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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