An exciting middle-grade debut for puzzle lovers and math aficionados.
In Barber’s middle-grade series starter,a tween girl gets caught up in an adventure involving science, technology, engineering, and math.
Twelve-year-old Finney Brown doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Her teachers often reprimand her for being fidgety and distracted, even though she loves learning and is one of the smartest kids in her class. Her eccentric math teacher, Jane Swindell, is the only person who seems to understand her. One day, Ms. Swindell enters her classroom’s supply closet and never re-emerges. When Finney and her best friend, Erika, investigate the strange vanishing, they find a secret door in the closet and a note from their teacher stating, “If you’re reading this note, I’ve disappeared and I’m counting on you to find me. You’ll have to function without me and follow the sequence. Be careful. There may be those on their way to harm you.” The stakes are high, according to the note, and it turns out that Ms. Swindell is part of a secret society called the Mathmysterians. They’re tasked with protecting Albert Einstein’s hidden legacy from falling into the hands of the Order, which wants to use his theories for their own ill ends. Barber’s book lays out an adventure that gives Finney the chance to not only impress her teacher, but also emulate her scientist and mathematician heroes. It’s packed with puzzles that fans of Trenton Lee Stewart’s middle-grade bestseller The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) are sure to love, and its action sequences are reminiscent of the Indiana Jones franchise, but scaled down for the relatable young protagonist and her pals. The complications surrounding who Finney can trust at any given moment will keep readers on their toes. Although the premise behind Einstein’s secrets may stretch readers’ suspension of disbelief, it functions successfully as the story’s cornerstone.
An exciting middle-grade debut for puzzle lovers and math aficionados.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-68512-471-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
We challenge anyone to read this and keep a straight face.
Four misunderstood villains endeavor to turn over a new leaf…or a new rap sheet in Blabey's frenzied romp.
As readers open the first page of this early chapter book, Mr. Wolf is right there to greet them, bemoaning his reputation. "Just because I've got BIG POINTY TEETH and RAZOR-SHARP CLAWS and I occasionally like to dress up like an OLD LADY, that doesn't mean… / … I'm a BAD GUY." To prove this very fact, Mr. Wolf enlists three equally slandered friends into the Good Guys Club: Mr. Snake (aka the Chicken Swallower), Mr. Piranha (aka the Butt Biter), and Mr. Shark (aka Jaws). After some convincing from Mr. Wolf, the foursome sets off determined to un-smirch their names (and reluctantly curbing their appetites). Although these predators find that not everyone is ready to be at the receiving end of their helpful efforts, they use all their Bad Guy know-how to manage a few hilarious good deeds. Blabey has hit the proverbial nail on the head, kissed it full on the mouth, and handed it a stick of Acme dynamite. With illustrations that startle in their manic comedy and deadpan direct address and with a narrative that follows four endearingly sardonic characters trying to push past (sometimes successfully) their fear-causing natures, this book instantly joins the classic ranks of Captain Underpants and The Stinky Cheese Man.
We challenge anyone to read this and keep a straight face. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-91240-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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