A cracking good adventure with a diverse cast in a memorable world.
This sequel to The Fog Diver (2015) takes readers back to a post-apocalyptic world in which civilization has been driven into the skies.
But humanity it seems hasn’t changed…greed, love, cruelty, patriotism, strength, and weakness still drive human actions. Chess and the other scavengers have made it out of the slums and to the safety of Port Oro, but Lord Kodoc is still on their tail. He knows that tetherboy and narrator Chess is a fog diver like no other, able to survive the deadly nanites that cloud the Earth. (Created to eat pollution, nanites became a threat when they perceived humans as pollution.) Chess and the rest of his makeshift family—Hazel, the captain; Swedish, the pilot; Loretta, the muscle; and Bea, the engineer—know if they don’t find the mysterious Compass before Kodoc, no one will be safe. As in the series opener, Ross glories in the Dickensian details of his post-apocalyptic world, winking in homage to adult readers with the insult “chuzzlewit.” Also as before, the characters’ garbled notions of the Earth “before the Fog” offer endless delight; when introduced to the concept of tomato “catchup,” they wonder “How do you race tomatoes?” before concluding that “The ancients were totally peanuts.”
A cracking good adventure with a diverse cast in a memorable world. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-235297-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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