A found-family tale that falls flat due to tired stereotypes.
A plucky young hero unravels a monster-filled mystery.
As an infant, Theodora was found swaddled in a graveyard in England by a kindly zombie and his vampire-cat companion. She was adopted by a good-natured group of monsters, who broke a strict tenet of their sacred charter by bringing a human into the mix. Now, 10 years later, Theodora attends Appleton Primary School. On the first day of Year Five, she meets and befriends Dexter Adebola, a new Nigerian American student. When odd occurrences begin to compound—sinister notes, trails of slimy earwax, and ominous corvids—Theodora knows she must uncover the nefarious source before her place within her beloved monster family is jeopardized. Kopy’s breezy offering is more fun than frightening, with conversational chapters that mostly culminate in page-turning cliffhangers but ultimately lead to a lackluster and hastily rendered conclusion. This work, which was originally published in the U.K. in 2020, contains some questionable representation. Brave and precocious Theodora is white; conversely, bespectacled, stuttering Dexter, who’s Black, serves as little more than an anxious sidekick. The depictions of women are also unfortunate: As the fight between good and evil culminates, the good monster is shown as thin, feminine, and conventionally attractive, whereas the bad one is fat and disabled and has hairy legs.
A found-family tale that falls flat due to tired stereotypes. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781665906838
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Delightful fun for budding mystery fans.
Only children, rejoice! A cozy mystery just for you! (People with siblings will probably enjoy it too.)
Debut novelist Cornett introduces the One and Onlys, a trio of mystery-solving only kids: Gloria Longshanks “Shanks” Hill, Alexander “Peephole” Calloway, and narrator Paul (alas, no nickname) Marconi. The trio has a knack for finding and solving low-level mysteries, but they come up against a true head-scratcher when the yard of a resident of their small town is covered in rubber ducks overnight. Working ahead of Officer Portnoy, who’s a little on the slow side, can Paul, Shanks, and Peephole solve the mystery? Cornett has a lot of fun with this adventure, dropping additional side mysteries, a subplot about small businesses, big corporations, and economics, and a town’s love of bratwurst into the mix. Most importantly, he plays fair with the clues throughout, allowing astute readers to potentially solve the case ahead of the trio. The tone and mystery are perfect for younger readers who want to test their detective skills but are put off by anything scary or gory. The pacing would serve well for chapter-by-chapter read-alouds. If there are any quibbles, it’s the lack of diversity of the cast, as it defaults white. Diversity exists in small towns, and this one is crying out for more. Hopefully a sequel will introduce additional faces.
Delightful fun for budding mystery fans. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-3003-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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