Action-packed, highly suspenseful, and deeply moving. Perfect.
Almost as soon as Brodie arrives in a beautifully realized dog heaven, he remembers that there is something he must do.
It takes him a little longer to recall the specifics of this imperative. It’s his boy. His boy, Aiden, the one who provided him with the beloved ball game “Away. And Back,” needs him desperately. The boy is in terrible danger. Exuberant dog’s dog Tuck, “all run, all wag, all toothy smile,” reveals that there is a way to go back to Aiden’s world, although only as a spirit and only with the understanding that going there imperils an animal’s soul. Tuck, with unfinished business of his own, bravely accompanies Brodie back to the world of the living, where the pair, along with an edgy ghost of a cat, Patsy (she didn’t pick her name), join forces against a pack of vicious, driven hellhounds that want nothing more than to consume the good dogs’ souls. Their unending pursuit adds urgency to Brodie’s quest for Aiden even as the source of the white boy’s peril is gradually, terrifyingly revealed. Readers learn early on there is a violent force in Aiden’s life, though details of exactly how close and exactly how violent are meted out carefully, controlling the pacing and ramping up the tension. The third-person narrator keeps the plot moving swiftly forward while providing a dog’s-eye interpretation of events and a running commentary on the revered nature of good dogs.
Action-packed, highly suspenseful, and deeply moving. Perfect. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-05388-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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