Rod Allbright returns for his second space romp (after Aliens Ate My Homework, 1993) with the crew of the spaceship Ferkel. He and his annoying cousin, Elspeth, are captured by a painfully ugly space-giant, Smorkus Flinders, who kidnaps them into another dimension and uses them as bait to trap Grakker, the captain of the Ferkel and a Galactic Patrol good guy. Grakker and his crew come to Rod's rescue, but they total the Ferkel in their escape and are forced to remain in Dimension X and seek the help of the local fauna and flora. (Don't laugh; some of the flora is pretty intelligent.) It's a good thing they do because, while they're there, they must save their own universe from destruction by Smorkus and his evil cronies. Rod apprentices himself to the warrior Tar Gibbons and, between his training and the inedible food he gets at Smorkus's place, this space jaunt starts looking like a spa vacation for our pudgy hero. Tar prepares to fight Smorkus, but at the last moment his apprentice must step in for him—they enlarge Rod for the fight—and in a scene worthy of ``American Gladiators'' Rod triumphs over his enemy. He also learns that his father, who ran out on Rod's mother three years ago, is not altogether a human being—which makes Rod himself half-alien. In the epilogue, Rod sets up for his next adventure: the rescue of his father. Hilarious antics with endearing aliens. Coville (Oddly Enough, below) is at the top of his weird, wonderful form. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-89072-7
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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