A wacky story of loyalty and self-discovery.
Charles is 12, unpopular, bullied, small and geeky—and to make matters worse, he’s turning into a giant reptile.
Charles relates, with wit and pathos, his Kafka-esque metamorphosis from angst-ridden pubescent to dinosaur. As his skin turns green and a tail sprouts, Charles is utterly dismayed, “Forget about being popular. At this point I would happily settle for human.” His two best friends, Lucille and Sam, also outcasts, seem rather thrilled at Charles’ change. He grapples with the difficulties of being a huge reptile, finding clothing and sitting at a desk problematic. Bizarrely, though, not only can he still talk, he still has his own voice. At school, despite continued bullying from his nemesis, Craig, Charles begins to enjoy celebrity status, and Amy, the most popular girl in the school, starts fussing over him. Charles gets utterly swept up in this new sensation and in so doing loses perspective on where his loyalties lie. When he’s challenged to betray his best friends, Charles faces the monster inside himself. With occasional comic drawings and lots of humor regarding life as a dinosaur among humans (such as the scale of reptile farts), this romp is a balm for anyone who’s ever felt awkward in their own scales err, skin. Charles’ first-person narration reveals an anthropologist’s eye for the social strata of middle school.
A wacky story of loyalty and self-discovery. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-01271-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Offers a hauntingly truthful view of secrets and strength.
A tale of survival, friendship, and the strength that comes from overcoming fears.
Middle schooler Jac is dealing with the fallout of a real-life nightmare: childhood cancer. But it’s not just the fear of recurrence that she has to handle, but the reality of surviving and carrying the burden of her mom’s constant worry. When Jac discovers a large house that wasn’t there before looming at the end of a street in her suburban New Jersey neighborhood, she worries it’s a hallucination, which could mean a recurrence of her illness. But after her best friend, a boy named Hazel, sees the house too, her sense of adventure takes over. Provoked by a couple of bullies who dare them to enter and then follow them inside, Jac and Hazel explore the house and are met with surprises—like a key with Jac’s likeness on it—that suggest her connection to this strange and terrifying place is personal. Before long, the kids realize they are trapped inside. Shocks follow with every new door they open as they search for an exit and discover ever increasing frights. Delightfully nightmarish visions chase Jac, offering the feel of a thrilling game with twisted and terrifying imagery, as she navigates the house, seeking to understand her connection to this unusual place in this emotionally resonant story. Characters seem to default to White.
Offers a hauntingly truthful view of secrets and strength. (Paranormal. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313657-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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