This gripping, suspenseful read with compelling characters and a spellbinding setting lures readers into the deep-cold night...
After he moves to Dawson, Yukon, with Stephanie, his troubled mother, Edgar bonds with an elderly dog and remakes his connection to the world.
When they broke up, Stephanie’s ex gave Edgar a camera. Hours into their Dawson housesitting gig, she’s flirting with their new neighbor Ceese, while his friendly daughter, Caroline, introduces Edgar to Benjamin, an infirm Newfoundland, age 14. Living with an unstable, alcoholic parent has made Edgar both passive and fearfully observant. He’s seen her use her looks and charisma to attract the partnered men she fancies before she flees with Edgar to start over. Edgar, almost 12, is determined to keep her from claiming Ceese, whose long-standing girlfriend he admires. Drawn to the Yukon’s icy, implacable beauty—and immersed in Benjamin’s smelly but endearing reality—Edgar identifies with the dog in Jack London’s iconic story “To Build a Fire.” As Benjamin speaks to him, then understands him, Edgar’s words sound like barking to humans though he still writes in English. With heightened senses and his camera he tracks his out-of-control mother, whom he sees as a predator, and makes desperate efforts to warn the preyed upon. Cumyn deliberately builds this memorable world, easing readers into their suspension of disbelief as Edgar’s engagement with Benjamin grows. Far from a mere survival tale, this is a psychological thriller for sophisticated middle-grade readers. Edgar and his mother present white; Ceese and Caroline have brown skin.
This gripping, suspenseful read with compelling characters and a spellbinding setting lures readers into the deep-cold night even as they long for a life-affirming sunrise. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9752-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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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