An imbalanced mesh of sibling squabbles and overly didactic reef advocacy.
Gracie convinces her parents to take her and her little brother, Ben, snorkeling in Roatán.
Though her ultimate snorkeling goal is the Maldives, Korean American Gracie knows that baby steps are necessary to get her family from New York to the other side of the world, so she compromises by suggesting Honduras for spring break. Gracie also knows that patience is key when dealing with impulsive, boundary-crossing Ben. Gracie finds joy in seeing fairy basslets, butterflyfish, and other marine wildlife, but as Ben’s behavior grates on her and she learns about the threats faced by the world’s reefs, she’s brought to her boiling point. Gracie’s attempts to engage Ben in her interests fail to create a cohesive story. Her parents also leave her to do more than her fair share of caring for Ben—a choice that the author never unpacks or pushes back on. Frequent lectures from those who run the dive shop and the local marine park offer valuable information about protecting reefs but feel preachy and clunkily inserted. Ben behaves more like what an adult thinks a 6-year-old talks and acts like. While some readers may share Gracie’s passions, her descriptions of snorkeling and fishing are often disrupted by inorganic language and actions. Final art not seen.
An imbalanced mesh of sibling squabbles and overly didactic reef advocacy. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780063346291
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Allida/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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