Holy heckenlooper, as Cody is wont to put it—families can have strange secrets.
A biography-writing assignment takes a sixth-grader from the eerie depths of New York’s Grand Central Terminal all the way to Troll Mountain.
Being a troll isn’t the only secret hulking Ned Thump, a night security guard at Grand Central, nurses…nor are young Cody’s paternal grandparents both of Finnish—or even human—descent, as he’s always been led to believe. So, hardly do the two come face to face before revelations and general weirdness start to flow: Cody is suddenly talking to cats; meeting an irascible brownie at his cousin Alexandra’s (see Cursed, originally published as Diary of a Mad Brownie, 2015); and learning that there is an Enchanted Realm. There, both his long-absent grandpa and a certain troll’s intended (sleeping, for the past century and a half, in a glass coffin) are in urgent need of rescue from the choleric king of the trolls. The airy tale jets along on frequent mention of farting, which not only is a sine qua non of troll poetry and, apparently, prophecy, but plays a crucial role in the climax. The narrative is delivered in Cody’s and Ned’s alternating diary entries, interspersed with email, handwritten letters, chat transcripts, folk tales, and trollish lore. Cody seems to present as white; Ned is depicted as green on the cover.
Holy heckenlooper, as Cody is wont to put it—families can have strange secrets. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-39259-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Readers will gobble this down and look for more, make no mythtake.
Promising myth-adventures aplenty, this kickoff episode introduces young Zeus, “a very special, yet clueless godboy.”
After 10-year-old Zeus is plucked from his childhood cave in Crete by armed “Cronies” of the Titan king, Cronus, he is rescued by harpies. He then finds himself in a Grecian temple where he acquires a lightning bolt with the general personality of a puppy and receives hints of his destiny from an Oracle with fogged eyeglasses. Recaptured and about to be eaten by Cronus, Zeus hurls the bolt down the Titan’s throat—causing the king to choke and then, thanks to an alert Crony’s Heimlich maneuver, to barf up several previously eaten Olympians. Spooning in numerous ingredients from the origin myth’s traditional versions, the veteran authors whip up a smooth confection, spiced with both gross bits and contemporary idiom (“ ‘Eew!’ a voice shrieked. ‘This is disgusting!’ ”) and well larded with full-page illustrations (not seen). One thorough washing later, off marches the now-cocky lad with new allies Poseidon and Hera, to rescue more Olympians in the next episode.
Readers will gobble this down and look for more, make no mythtake. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5787-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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