A funny, rollicking, action-packed quest through the cosmos.
Elara Vaughn has wanted to become a terraformer, a bioengineer who creates new life forms, her whole life.
The dark-skinned human girl journeys to the prestigious and wildly diverse Seven Systems School of Terraforming Sciences and Arts from the remote farming planet Vega Antilles V. Elara quickly makes friends: a polite stone giant named Knot and a blue girl named Beezle who’s part of a hive mind. Inadvertently and quite destructively creating a star together unites the three girls and catches the attention of the school’s headmistress. Instead of punishing them, she gives them extracurricular activities in which Elara and her friends succeed in exploding and destroying more school property. When Elara rescues snobby, four-armed Sabik from a spider-kitten, he becomes another friend. Headmistress Nebulina also tasks Elara with solving the Impossible Equation, a mathematical formula that proves that terraforming cannot be done instantaneously. As if this is not enough, someone is trying to kill Elara—it seems her fate is tied to the fate of the galaxy. Some action scenes run the risk of containing too much technical jargon for readers to fully engage, but the escape scenes and explosions help to compensate. Elara’s friendships with the charming Knot and Beezle will give middle-grade readers a positive model to follow, but her relationship with Sabik feels underdeveloped. An epilogue promises more adventures.
A funny, rollicking, action-packed quest through the cosmos. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-515-15791-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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
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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