A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains.
Myla and Peter step into the path of a gang when they unite forces to find Peter’s runaway brother, Randall.
As they follow the graffiti tags that Randall has been painting in honor of the boys’ deceased father, they uncover a sinister history involving stolen diamonds, disappearances, and deaths. It started long ago when the boys’ grandmother, a diamond-cutter, partnered with the head of the gang. She was rumored to have hidden his diamonds before her suspicious death, leaving clues to their whereabouts. Now everyone is searching, including Randall. The duo’s collaboration is initially an unwilling one fraught with misunderstandings. Even after Peter and Myla bond over being the only people of color in an otherwise white school (Myla is Indian-American; mixed-race Peter is Indian, African-American, and white), Peter can’t believe the gang is after Myla. But Myla possesses a necklace that holds a clue. Alternating first-person chapters allow peeks into how Myla, Peter, and Randall unravel the story and decipher clues. Savvy readers will put the pieces together, too, although false leads and red herrings are cleverly interwoven. The action stumbles at times, but it takes place against the rich backdrops of gritty New York City and history-laden Dobbs Ferry and is made all the more colorful by references to graffiti art and parkour.
A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains. (Mystery. 10-12)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2296-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like Simon, Maya and Penny, readers will find it hard to leave the magical world of Tamarind.
After rescuing their marine-biologist parents from a mysterious island in The Lost Island of Tamarind (2008), feisty siblings Maya, Simon and Penny encounter more amazing adventures as they return to prevent Tamarind’s destruction in this hair-raising sequel.
Since leaving Tamarind four years ago, Maya, Simon and Penny (16, 13 and 5, respectively) have lived quietly in Bermuda with their preoccupied parents, who worry about the Red Coral Project, a phony scientific study intent on ravaging Tamarind to extract the precious mineral ophalla. When Helix, their orphan pal from Tamarind, asks them to sail the Pamela Jane back to the island, Simon, Maya and Penny can’t refuse. Shocked to discover the Red Coral systematically destroying the island, they embark on an arduous quest. Eventually Simon assumes the hero’s role, following obscure clues hidden in three ophallagraphs, leading relentlessly to the Neglected Provinces, the Little Blue Door, the Mumbagua Falls, the Moraine of Lost Loved Ones and, ultimately, to Faustina’s Gate. Here, with Tamarind’s fate in his hands, Simon comes of age, “knowing his purpose is important and clear.” Replete with ecological warnings applicable to real as well as fantasy worlds and glossed with lush descriptions of imaginary flora and fauna, the rapid-fire plot bristles with danger.
Like Simon, Maya and Penny, readers will find it hard to leave the magical world of Tamarind. (map) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: July 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-38030-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Action and enthusiasm aplenty, but, like most time-travel tales, not much for internal logic.
A Back to the Future–style romp through time, though with more loose ends than a bowl of spaghetti.
Hardly have teen twins Kyle and Emma and their younger brother (and narrator) Max arrived for a stay at their reclusive grandfather’s Texas ranch than the old man announces that he’s about to have a massive heart attack, shows them a working time machine in the basement and sends them out to a nearby paleontological site where they find fossilized sneaker prints among the dinosaur tracks. Then a stranger grabs Emma and vanishes in a flash of light—leaving the remaining sibs and a ranch hand’s bow-wielding daughter Petra to zoom in a Volkswagen Beetle back 70 million–plus years to the rescue. Not only does the late Cretaceous landscape turn out to be well stocked with crocodilian Deinosuchus and other toothy predators, a human gent falsely (as it turns out) claiming to be a refugee from 1919 steps out of the bushes to guide the others to the evidently dino-proof frame house in which Emma is being held. Everyone steams back to the present on the kidnapper’s motor launch, which is also fitted out as a time machine. Showing blithe disregard for potential paradoxes, the author sheds enough light on his byzantine back story to ensure that the protagonists will be taking more trips through time and closes with notes on dinosaurs and on the history of “Robinsonades.”
Action and enthusiasm aplenty, but, like most time-travel tales, not much for internal logic. (recommended reading) (Science fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-60849-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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