Funny sci-fi and comic-book adventures rolled into one heavily illustrated novel.
Two best friends find their lives transformed when they meet a time-traveling T. rex.
Fearful Tim Sullivan couldn’t be more different than adventurous Tito Delgado. When Oskar’s Transtemporal Theropod Transporter 3.0 lands in Tim’s backyard, Tito befriends the talking dinosaur, but Tim is much warier. Things keep happening that prove him right. First Tim drinks all the IMPOSSIBLE JUICE™ and then finds out it was the only fuel source onboard. Now Oskar is stuck in the present and cannot travel back to his own time. The juice gives Tim a superpower that brings his worries to life, but he won’t understand that for a while. Oskar quickly absorbs human knowledge via the internet and then produces SARA, “the nicest, smartest, and most powerful virtual assistant ever created.” Little does he know that SARA will turn evil and begin a series of battles with her creator and the two friends that will involve poop, giant “flying duck-shaped robots,” a honey badger, and Tim’s finally discovered superpower. This over-the-top humorous fantasy mashes up technology (even including a chart of the binary code for each letter of the alphabet, with a coded message for readers to decipher), comic-book tropes, weird animals, and scatological humor, with cartoon-style digital illustrations on almost every page that will keep readers poring over the details. Latine Tito inserts occasional Spanish phrases into his dialogue; Tim and most other human characters read as White.
Funny sci-fi and comic-book adventures rolled into one heavily illustrated novel. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9269-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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