A zany premise and an equally off-the-wall plot keep this wandering tale—the first separate outing for characters with a regular gig in MUSE magazine—afloat, but just barely. Eight of the nine ancient Muses having retired to an old-age home, humanity’s welfare is left to a motley assortment of New Muses, like featherbrained, doughnut-obsessed Feather (Muse of Plants), Aeiou (Muse of Software), Bo (Muse of Factoids) and Kokopelli the flute player (Muse of Tricks and Tunes). Though Gonick introduces Emma, a young orphan whose deranged stepfather Darien Drinkwater is out to recover a treasure that belongs to her, Kokopelli is really the central character here—and he’s bending every effort to clobber the elusive Urania, Muse of Astronomy, with ballistically launched, electronically enhanced “smart pies.” Happily, he leaves off his obsession long enough to cozen Drinkwater with the Nigerian Scam, so that Emma can recover the gold and find a new, better home. Sporting an array of odd forms in the tiny vignettes with which this tale is sprinkled, the New Muses may keep their current fans amused, but they’re unlikely to draw many new ones with this offbeat episode. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8126-2740-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Cricket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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
Reports of children requesting rewrites of The Reluctant Dragon are rare at best, but this new version may be pleasing to young or adult readers less attuned to the pleasures of literary period pieces. Along with modernizing the language—“Hmf! This Beowulf fellow had a severe anger management problem”—DiTerlizzi dials down the original’s violence. The red-blooded Boy is transformed into a pacifistic bunny named Kenny, St. George is just George the badger, a retired knight who owns a bookstore, and there is no actual spearing (or, for that matter, references to the annoyed knight’s “Oriental language”) in the climactic show-fight with the friendly, crème-brulée-loving dragon Grahame. In look and spirit, the author’s finely detailed drawings of animals in human dress are more in the style of Lynn Munsinger than, for instance, Ernest Shepard or Michael Hague. They do, however, nicely reflect the bright, informal tone of the text. A readable, if denatured, rendition of a faded classic. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3977-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
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