This series finale reads like a whirlwind.
Gilly Cobbler and her friends from Fairy Tale Reform School must prevent the villainous Rumpelstiltskin from casting a curse that will wipe out all of Enchantasia.
Traveling on Blackbeard’s pirate ship, the group heads to Shipwreck Cove in hopes of finding genie Darlene’s lamp. After a quick battle with the guardian kraken (a misunderstanding), they realize Stiltskin has already beaten them there! The FTRS teachers confirm, via magic mirror, that Gilly and her family are somehow tied to Stiltskin and the curse—a foreboding message, especially since Gilly’s sister Anna now leads the child villains of the Stiltskin Squad. In order to learn about her heritage and hopefully unlock some of her latent fairy powers, Gilly visits her estranged fairy grandmother. But with time running out, will the group save FTRS and their fairy-tale world as they know it? As is appropriate for a series climax, action and drawn-out tension abound. The quickly reached resolution is abrupt, as are the spaces between the near-continuous battles, making for a very bumpy read. If readers have stuck with the series through the other five installments, at least this book will offer both an ending and a peek at more of Gilly’s family. Gilly is white, but her classmates are diverse, both in race and in species.
This series finale reads like a whirlwind. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8016-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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
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