Gripping monster mischief highlights an environmental problem but gives the protagonists little to do.
A seaside vacation turns into a monster attack when plastic ocean garbage undergoes a horrifying transformation in this second installment of an illustrated children’s book series.
Twelve-year-old, red-haired Pixie Van Dimple and her White family have planned a beach day. While off to get fish and chips for lunch, Pixie and her sister, Trixie, tell their father they’re going to use the bathroom—but they are actually heading to the candy store to buy sweets. As they walk back, they decide that since they can’t spot a trash bin, they’ll just dump their garbage in the ocean. It’s the last straw for the sea: Pixie and Trixie’s trash sets off a catastrophic transformation, and a garbage monster rises from the ocean. While the uncredited illustrations keep their bright colors and friendly cartoon feel, the situation described in the text is dire: “All around the girls, death and destruction ensued, the likes of it never witnessed before / On a scale of 1 to ten since you ask, this was spectacularly HARD CORE!” Leaving the sisters behind, the rhyming narrative amps up the worldwide chaos, eventually relating the use of space lasers to solve the plastic mess. Meanwhile, Pixie and Trixie miraculously survive in a huge beach hole dug by overzealous vacationers. Though the monster mayhem highlights the disaster of plastic in the ocean, the tale moves away from the sisters, who just cause the cataclysm and then persevere through no efforts of their own. McAllister uses rhyming phrases of different lengths, with frequent interjections that throw off the scansion. In addition to the complex vocabulary (synchronised quintet, sensitive dermis) that would challenge the picture-book crowd, the uneven font makes for a difficult reading experience. Strong, independent middle-grade readers are the likely target audience for the text, but the flat cartoon images, sanitized of the narrative’s violence, feel aimed at a much younger group. The London author’s comedic tone and action-packed story will appeal to budding environmentalists. But the clunky format and design place the tale between age categories.
Gripping monster mischief highlights an environmental problem but gives the protagonists little to do.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-398-41427-3
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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