Animal fantasy adventure with a gentle feel.
Three woodland animals take a journey to bring a baby dragon back to his home.
When Twig, a chipmunk, left home with his adopted baby dragon and found a ship-in-a-bottle that could be reassembled outside the bottle (Brambleheart: A Story About Finding Treasure and the Unexpected Magic of Friendship, 2016), he set off bravely for parts unknown. Now Twig, his best friend, Lily (a rabbit), and their enemy-inexplicably-turned-friend, Basil (a weasel), are sailing down a river, trying to bring baby dragon Char back to his home—with no hint where that may be. Fragile Char’s susceptible to hunger and cold; he understands when the animals talk to him, but he doesn’t reply, not even when he revives after eating fish that Lily catches by weaving a net. The adventure goes from river to open ocean to island. They find Char’s family and an old enemy finds them, clarifying (grimly) an emotionally confusing event from Brambleheart. Dangers are all overcome, either with ingenuity and teamwork or with help in the form of a beaver, a sea turtle, or an adult dragon appearing exactly when needed. Cole’s pencil drawings appear on almost every spread, earnest, immediate, and expressive. They help with storytelling, as when readers can discern that a mysterious, ship-blocking wall is a beaver dam several pages before the text says so.
Animal fantasy adventure with a gentle feel. (Fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-224551-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Good, solid fantasy fun.
Nine-year-old Brooklynite Jaxon meets a witch, becomes her apprentice, and protects baby dragons all in one eventful day.
As the story opens, Jaxon and his mom are being evicted. While Mama tries to secure a place to stay, she leaves him with Ma, the woman who raised her. Ma clearly doesn’t want Jaxon around, but it becomes apparent that’s at least partially due to a mysterious package she’s received. Jax soon discovers that Ma’s a witch, his mom used to be Ma’s apprentice (a mantle he takes up), and that Ma’s package contains…baby dragons! The dragons need to be taken to the magical realm, but a transport malfunction strands Ma while Jax is sent back to Brooklyn. Desperate to save Ma, Jax enlists the help of his friend Vikram, whose little sister, Kavita, tags along. Curious—or is it nosy?—Kavita discovers the dragons and does the worst: feeds them. This not only increases their size, but bonds them to her. Thankfully, Trub, Jax’s maternal grandfather, is a magic user and helps Jax find Ma and get the dragons to the magical realm, where (discerning readers won’t be surprised) they discover one dragon is missing….What a breath of fresh air: a chapter-book fantasy with an urban setting, an array of brown-skinned magic wielders, and a lovable black protagonist readers will root for and sympathize with. Geneva B’s black-and-white illustrations depict a cast of color and appear every few pages.
Good, solid fantasy fun. (Fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7045-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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