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WARRIORS OF THE BLACK SHROUD

This attractive world (warriors ride unicorns!) and likable characters—boy heroes with a strong girl sidekick—will give...

This fast-paced fantasy novel begins with a nerdy boy reading in his refrigerator-box hideout, only to be whisked off to a kingdom filled with beauty and magic. 

When 11-year-old Walker Watson meets red-headed, sword-bearing Prince Edward, he discovers that in the Kingdom of Nebula, “We live in light but we don’t forget that the dark is always present just the other side of the walls, and it could take over at any moment.” When the Warriors of the Black Shroud and their evil master strike Nebula, the reluctant Walker, his only friend Frances (a.k.a. Frankie) and Prince Edward take action. With the exception of the three young people, characters develop only enough to make sense within the plot and drive the action. This book falls into the traditional category of good-against-evil battles in which “elders have to be taught by children”; the explicit use of “Chosen One” to describe, well, the Chosen One further wedges it into its genre niche. Well-worn tropes aside, the climax and resolution have just enough surprise to satisfy readers. 

This attractive world (warriors ride unicorns!) and likable characters—boy heroes with a strong girl sidekick—will give fledgling readers of fantasy a treat. (Fantasy. 8-11)

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-06-172987-4

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011

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CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE TYRANNICAL RETALIATION OF THE TURBO TOILET 2000

From the Captain Underpants series , Vol. 11

Dizzyingly silly.

The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.

Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.

Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014

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TUCK EVERLASTING

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever. 

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it. 

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975

ISBN: 0312369816

Page Count: 164

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975

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