An enthralling, fast-paced adventure, hinting of more to come.
Unexpectedly trapped in a fantasy kingdom, best friends Lucy and Dee embark on a quest.
Adventurous Lucy dreams of being a world traveler, while cautious Dee wants to be a scientist. Since the disappearance of his archaeologist parents, Dee conducts alchemical experiments, hoping to produce gold to fund a search. Lured by a flaming red bird into a tunnel with a road of silk, the default White duo encounter a stone man who pronounces them “the children we have been waiting for.” He bargains with them to go on a mission to befriend the kingdom of Sericea’s young emperor, a lonely boy facing danger and in need of companions his age. In return, the stone man promises information that could help Dee locate his parents. Traveling on fantastical horselike creatures to the Celestial City, Lucy and Dee meet 13-year-old Emperor Yidi, a petulant, self-absorbed boy controlled by Xixi, his sorceress stepmother. Blond Xixi is a foreigner in this fantasy land that evokes China, and she is intent on retaining her power by eliminating Yidi. Fearing for their lives, the young people flee with Xixi’s forces in pursuit. The trio, including a reformed Yidi who grows in compassion and understands that he is the one who must save Sericea, emerge as credible young heroes making difficult moral choices as they seek a safe place to hide out and regroup. The story ultimately leaves readers in suspense about what happens next.
An enthralling, fast-paced adventure, hinting of more to come. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-988761-66-4
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Common Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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