With a story like an old-fashioned episode of Star Trek, this is a wonderful science-fiction introduction for young readers.
Explore space with Geronimo Stiltonix, futuristic analog of the familiar Geronimo Stilton.
Geronimo Stiltonix, captain of the prestigious MouseStar 1, “would rather be writing novels than steering a spaceship.” His crew’s made up of, in part, other familiar Stilton characters with -ix added to their last names, the personal assistant robot Assistatrix and all-purpose robot Robotix. He may be captain, but Geronimo is the last to find out that his spaceship is in danger of exploding. To stabilize the engine, they must obtain the rare element tetrastellium. Luckily, a nearby planet, Rattos, might have some. Upon arriving, they are hailed by friendly pink mousoids who offer them tetrastellium. But their tetrastellium is pink instead of the customary blue. Even stranger, despite the great value and rarity of tetrastellium, the pink mousoids refuse any payment but friendship. Suspicious, Geronimo and a team go to Rattos’ surface on reconnaissance. Sure enough, strange pink happenings onboard the ship presage the takeover of the control room by an evil, sentient mass of pink goo. It takes clever thinking by the away team to defeat the goo and save the ship. The format includes the customary Stilton staples: wild types and colors, playful illustrations and sidebars that elaborate on aspects of the fictional world.
With a story like an old-fashioned episode of Star Trek, this is a wonderful science-fiction introduction for young readers. (the spacemice creed) (Graphic science fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-64650-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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