A finny frolic to delight younger Goosebumps fans.
Boy meets shark for the delectation of a TV audience. What could go wrong?
Twelve-year-old Liam Brachman has no intention of being the star of his filmmaker mom’s new shark tank show for the Danger Channel, but when the hired actor suddenly goes down with a last-minute injury, Liam finds himself in the water—facing not the promised harmless hammerhead but a terrifyingly toothy bull shark! That’s only the first in a succession of nasty shocks for Liam that Stine spins out to improbable but entertaining lengths thanks to more all-too-eager filmmakers urging him into a flimsy-looking shark cage, an encounter with a tentacled sea monster, a swim in a piranha lagoon, and the like. Each seemingly inevitable moment of doom leads to one narrow escape after another. For all of this, Liam’s worst nemesis is actually Rosa, his scene-stealing little sister from hell, who chants cutely horrific ditties (“It’s shark time, / It’s shark time, / I can’t wait, I can’t wait / For Liam to be bait…”) while repeatedly showing off a perfectly fiendish gift for getting her big brother into pickles. As it turns out, aside from Liam’s terror, nothing here is quite as it seems—and yet, even though no actual blood is spilled, a final twist suggests that that might not continue to be the case. Main characters present white.
A finny frolic to delight younger Goosebumps fans. (Horror. 8-11)Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9798874712341
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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