Fans will be glad of the promise of an adventure in Atlantis to come; Celia and Oliver know adventure is only thrilling when...
Is it any wonder 11-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel hate explorers, given that all explorers ever do is nearly get them killed? Television is so much safer.
Celia and Oliver barely escaped Tibet with their lives (We Are Not Eaten by Yaks, 2011), and they failed to convince their mother (an explorer, of course) to give up her quest for the Lost Library of Alexandria and return home. Now, thanks to their father (another explorer), they’re indentured for the entirety of summer vacation to Sir Edmund Titheltorpe-Schmidt III (yeah, yet another explorer), who has them searching Machu Picchu for a clue to the Lost Library’s location. All in all, they’re looking forward to sixth grade (that’s saying something). When school goes disastrously wrong, the twins find themselves dragged off to the Amazon. At least they’re in the company of their idol Corey Brandt, star of Sunset High and Agent Zero, who’s hired the family as consultants for his hit show The Celebrity Adventurist. When Dad and Sir Edmund are kidnapped by cannibals, the twins must use their television-derived smarts to rescue them…or, at the very least, survive. London’s second in the Accidental Adventure series has more thrills and more mystery (and naturally more complaining and more laughs) than the first.
Fans will be glad of the promise of an adventure in Atlantis to come; Celia and Oliver know adventure is only thrilling when it happens to someone else. (Humorous adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25488-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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
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