Atmospherically heartfelt and cathartic.
Thirteen-year-old Billy finds an unexpected refuge in this British import.
Sensitive Billy can’t handle witnessing his mother’s abusive relationship with her boyfriend, with whom they live. Doing his best to be unseen—something he has far too much practice in—Billy escapes in the night to All Souls’ graveyard, where he’d found a tiny concrete hut from World War II. When he’s discovered the next day by an old man who has come to clean up the cemetery in preparation for a mysterious event, they strike a deal—if Billy helps, the man will stay quiet for a couple of days, but then Billy must go home. Billy loves and misses his mother and hates to cause her suffering. His emotions are juxtaposed with the empathy he feels for the individuals each gravestone represents. The text switches from the old-fashioned serif typeface of Billy’s post-departure chapters to modern, sans serif for those following his mother. The frantic need to find her son breaks her out of abuse-imposed isolation, gaining her the support of neighbors and (in contrast to her previous call for help for herself) the police. Love, loneliness, and grief are portrayed in grayscale illustrations, many full-page spreads, that expertly use light and shadow to convey mood. The messaging around domestic violence is straightforward and plainspoken, while Billy’s emotional arc leans into the magical; another family storyline is wrapped up tidily. Characters default to White.
Atmospherically heartfelt and cathartic. (Fabulism. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-84-365479-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pavilion Children's
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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