A satisfyingly silly and fast-paced sequel.
It’s been two months since Chance and Pauline Jeopard and their friend Mersey Marsh escaped Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creatures.
The Jeopards pass the hot, boring Texas summer working on personal projects and getting acquainted with their mom’s golf-loving, Arnold Palmer–drinking boyfriend. Mersey is occupied with her new boyfriend, Killiam Ng. The siblings’ ennui comes to an abrupt halt when they have to save the underground world of Donbaloh from human folly (again). An Oppaboffian miner—a human from “up above”—wants to drill into Donbaloh’s unimaginable mineral riches in order to eradicate human poverty, but at the risk of wiping out 11 million Donbalese citizens. In order to save the realm “down below,” Chance and Pauline (with Mersey helping from aboveground) will make a treacherous 6-hour voyage along an underground river, talk their way past a bureaucratic librarian, and slide down a chute into a stinky pile of laundry, but with the help of old friends and new, both human and Donbalese, they might be able to pull it off. The worldbuilding is creative and richly detailed, and an appendix provides an overview of Donbaloh’s unusual flora and fauna. Some of the hilarious comparisons, droll humor, and pop-culture references might go over younger readers’ heads but will be greatly appreciated by others. Assume Whiteness for most human characters; Killiam’s surname cues him as Chinese.
A satisfyingly silly and fast-paced sequel. (Fantasy. 8-14)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62779-259-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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