Jalasu Jhuk be praised! Another sequel is on the way, given the wide-open (but still satisfying) ending.
Throw your thol’graz in the air: Chorkle and its human friends return to continue their adventures (Space Rocks, 2014).
The ancient weapon Q-sik saved Gelo, Chorkle’s asteroid home, from the Vorem Dominion’s attack; unfortunately it also flung Gelo, its Xotonian inhabitants and their four human guests into an unknown corner of the universe. When Kalac, Chorkle’s originator (“parent,” in human terms) and the leader of the Xotonians, vanishes on nearby Kyral, Chorkle, Hollins, Nicki, Becky and Little Gus defy the opportunistic Sheln, who’s trying to steal Kalac’s position, to mount a rescue mission. The Aeaki, Kyral’s hostile, birdlike inhabitants, don’t know how to use their forbears’ technology any better than the Xotonians do theirs, so they aren’t any help in the search for Kalac…but a sullen Vorem teenager might be. O’Donnell’s continuation of Chorkle’s story is as much fun as its predecessor. Humorous linguistic and cultural clashes, well-built Everykid characters with realistically rocky relationships, and a logically constructed universe—not to mention action and a couple of surprises—fill out this solid sequel. Reading the first is highly recommended.
Jalasu Jhuk be praised! Another sequel is on the way, given the wide-open (but still satisfying) ending. (Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59514-714-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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