A quiet, unassuming, somewhat uneventful tale reinforcing the adage "there’s no place like home."
Stranded on a mysterious island, a young girl wonders if she’ll ever return to her family.
After the ship she’s traveling on with her aunt, uncle, and cousins encounters a storm, 11-year-old Pascale Chardon wakes up alone, adrift in a small boat. The tides carry her to the tiny tropical island of TeJÉ along with her only companion, a black beetle she’s named Inch. Until Pascale’s arrival, the island has never had a visitor, and she’s taken to the village Elders to see if she may be the Long Awaited, a prophesied stranger who will decide the community’s future. The previously uninhabited island was populated generations ago by people from around the world who left their societies in search of peaceful coexistence. Legend says that the islanders’ fate will be determined by whether the Long Awaited finds them living in peace and unity or conflict and strife. Pascale learns she must remain on TeJÉ for 17 days to determine if she’s the Long Awaited; however, she has no clue if she’s the Long Awaited and just wants to go home. Pascale settles into the daily rhythm of a caring, cooperative community, and events seem to unfold glacially, mirroring the idyllic island’s pace of life. When the long-awaited day finally arrives, the conclusion proves quite surprising. Pascale is presumably White; names point to the islanders’ multicultural ancestry.
A quiet, unassuming, somewhat uneventful tale reinforcing the adage "there’s no place like home." (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77086-647-8
Page Count: 220
Publisher: DCB
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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