"Underrunners" are narrow ditches, dangerous but intriguing, eroded in the inhospitable ground around 11-year-old Tristram's New Zealand home; here, he keeps a cache of provisions in case of an emergency and later hides his friend Winola (who's tunneled her way out of the nearby Children's Home) when she says she's in danger. Tris lives danger: a solitary boy with few friends, he has a rich fantasy life in which "Selsey Firebone" is a hero; Winola first makes friends with Tris by responding to Selsey's deep voice. In real life, Tris longs for the mother he barely remembers (she left years ago) and wonders whether Randall, his dad, will remarry. Randall used to counsel people; mistaking concern for professional skill, Tris doesn't like to confide in him. Some of the metaphorical underrunners are more perilous: the mysterious stranger lurking around the neighborhood in a handsome car proves to be Winola's vicious, abusive father and, in the book's gripping last half, he kidnaps the two children (coldly shooting Randall in the process) and imprisons them in a bleak house that Tris is astonished to recognize from his own imperfectly remembered past. Resourceful and courageous, the kids try again and again to escape, with Randall arriving to put a heroic finish to their rescue by walking into the house unarmed. Vintage Mahy: allusive, multilayered, intelligent, its compelling plot arising from splendidly idiosyncratic characters. A fine prelude to Memory (1988), with a similar theme of self- realization despite—and enriched by—the past's continuing power. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-84179-X
Page Count: 169
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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