An ambitious but awkward mashup of nursery-tale whimsy, Gothic tropes and modern didactic moralism.
Jane Eyre meets the Three Bears.
Once upon a time, in the faux-Victorian enclave of the Enchanted Forest, sentient creatures lived in harmony with humans—until the Anthropological Society began agitating for human supremacy. In this fraught atmosphere, the Vaughn family, three bears of great refinement, engage the young and naïve bear Ursula Brown as governess. Like any proper heroine, she forms an immediate bond with her charge, Teddy, and tumbles into star-crossed love. Still, she is troubled by ominous forebodings about Teddy’s resentful Nurse, the bigotry seething within the quaint village, and, above all, the dark secrets lurking in the titular stately mansion. Then, one night, a human girl with golden curls steals into her room….Ursula narrates in a deliberately old-fashioned cadence with “had I but known” asides. Principled and sincere, her dedication to Teddy and Goldilocks compels admiration, and the devoted friendship between cub and child is genuinely heartwarming. But the heavy-handed condemnation of prejudice jars oddly against Ursula’s genteel snobbishness, and her romance is downright mawkish. Like the other Enchanted beasts, her cultivated comportment—including corsets, pianofortes, Latin studies and conventional Christian piety—downplays her animal nature, making each reference to snouts, paws and fur appear intrusive. Likewise, the cameo appearances by storybook characters, while occasionally clever, often seem forced.
An ambitious but awkward mashup of nursery-tale whimsy, Gothic tropes and modern didactic moralism. (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75573-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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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