A pleasantly gothic pleaser for fans of Unfortunate Events.
In nine chatty letters, young Martha Grimstone introduces her peculiar family, describes the creation and hatching of three-legged little brother Crumpet, and fervently urges readers to write back.
This epistolary narrative has been spun off from a puppet performance and comes with inset photos of Tim Burton–style papier-mâché puppets in elaborately crafted antique settings and animations that range from a circling ring of quail to words that drop to the bottom of the page with a crash. There are also several full-screen interludes in which Martha—moving and gesturing like a marionette—beckons eerily to viewers, dumps potion ingredients into a pot or has a tap-activated exchange with her alchemist grandfather Elcho. She chattily shares hopes and dreams (“You never know, one day I could be the Lady of the Strongest Intestines in the Whole World”) as well as a string of domestic disasters or oddball incidents. In doing so, she repeatedly invites her readers to respond. Responses might in fact be mandatory; in one setting, each letter after the first is locked until the day after an answering letter is composed on a preformatted "Write Back" page. This can be toggled so that Martha writes regardless of readers' correspondence habits. There is no audio narration, but the app is supplied with sound effects and an optional background piano track.
A pleasantly gothic pleaser for fans of Unfortunate Events. (series website) (iPad storybook app. 8-11)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: X Asphyxia
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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