Cloneward Bound

Kirkus Reviews (January 1, 2013)


Fisher Bas and his clone, Two, are back for more action-packed fun. Though surviving the explosion at TechX Industries and revealing Dr. X's evil plans have made Fisher an overnight celebrity at Wompalog Middle School (Popular Clone, 2012), life is still pretty complicated for the seventh-grader. When Fisher learns that Two is not only alive and well, but living the high life in Los Angeles, he must figure out how to reel his clone in before he inadvertently exposes their genetic secret. A surprise class trip brings Fisher to the City of Angels, where he teams up with his classmate Amanda Cantrell to find Two and bring him back to Palo Alto before it's too late. Like a funny James Bond for the middle school set, the close third-person narrative is rife with humor, adventure, gadgetry and even a hint of romance. Fans of the series and new readers alike will eagerly turn the pages as Fisher and Amanda elude school chaperones and government agents, making their way from studio sound stages to the Hollywood Bowl in search of Two. The heart of the story, however, is what makes this book special, and it resides with Fisher, who struggles mightily with his own sense of self-worth when faced with a mirror image of himself that seems to have it all. A successful balance of fizz and substance. (Fantasy. 9-12)

A Dash of Magic

Kirkus Reviews starred (January 1, 2013)


In this hilarious sequel to Bliss (2012), 12-year-old Rose Bliss and her eccentric family travel to Paris, where she competes in an international pastry competition to outbake her scheming Aunt Lily Le Fey and recover the Bliss Cookery Booke. After Lily stole the Booke with its secret, special family recipes, the Bliss bakery's pies, muffins and croissants have lost their magic, leaving everyone in Calamity Falls feeling "a bit like warm lettuce." Meanwhile, Lily has a best-selling cookbook and a popular TV cooking show, and her Magical Ingredient threatens to have the "country in the palm of her hand." Determined to stop Lily, Rose challenges her in the formidable Gala des Gteaux Grands, with the Booke as the prize. To assemble the bizarre ingredients for their unconventional recipes, Rose and her family risk their necks and encounter ghostly creatures, searching the Seine, the Louvre, the Catacombs, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles and Notre Dame. Employing unorthodox cat-and-mouse subterfuge, a desperate Rose eventually discovers she may not need magic to be the best baker if she has her family's love. Readers will savor this latest Bliss family adventure as Rose and her siblings traverse Paris trying to outmaneuver Lily and turn the baking world upside down. Spot art captures key themes. Fantastic fantastical fare. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Chickadee

School Library Journal (September 1, 2012)


Gr 4-8-Effortlessly and beautifully, Erdrich continues her story about an Ojibwe family in northern Minnesota in the mid 1800s. The series began with Omakayas's girlhood and now shifts to the lives of her sons. In 1866, quiet Chickadee and mischievous Makoons are inseparable eight-year-old twins, cherished by their extended family. When they gather with other Ojibwe to make maple sugar, a cruel older man mocks Chickadee for his small size and namesake. Makoons defends his brother's honor by playing a revengeful prank on the man, which humiliates and incenses him. His thick-headed, muscle-bound sons vow revenge and kidnap Chickadee, carrying him away and forcing him to serve their bewildering oafish demands. His family is heartbroken and pursues the captors while Makoons becomes listless and ill. Chickadee eventually escapes, in time reuniting with a traveling uncle, who leads the way back to his family. Through many harrowing adventures, the child is aided and encouraged by his avian namesake, who teaches him that small things have great power. Erdrich's storytelling is masterful. All of the characters, even minor ones, are believable and well developed, and small pencil drawings add to the story's charm. The northern Minnesota setting is vividly described, and information about Ojibwe life and culture is seamlessly woven into every page. Readers will be more than happy to welcome little Chickadee into their hearts.-Lisa Crandall, Capital Area District Library, Holt, MI (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A Big Guy Took My Ball!

Kirkus Reviews (April 15, 2013)


Gerald the elephant and Piggie return with another playground psychodrama, this one with a twist. Piggie just loved the big ball she just found--"it was so fun!"--but the fun was short-lived, as the titular "big guy came--and--and--and-- / HE TOOK MY BALL!" Piggie's distress is so great Gerald is literally bowled over. "That is not right!" he declares. "What makes those big guys think they are so big?!" "Their size?" suggests Piggie. Gerald stalks off the page to give the big guy what-for, but...the big guy is "very BIG." In fact, the big guy is a land-going whale, who first thanks Piggie for finding his "little ball" and then laments that no one will play with him because of his extreme size: "LITTLE GUYS HAVE ALL THE FUN." (The whale speaks in all-uppercase letters, though the font changes with his mood; the previous sentence is printed in tiny, all-capped type.) This morality play in false assumptions and relativity unfurls with Willems' customary command of visual pacing; gags are spaced just right to keep the pages turning and readers giggling. His deft exploitation of comic-book conventions sets speech balloons to overlapping and appropriately varying in size. Nineteen books and five Geisel medals or honors along, Elephant and Piggie are still delivering funny, emotionally perceptive stories for just-emerging readers. As the big guy says: "BIG FUN!" (Early reader. 5-8)

What Animals Do on Day One My First Day

Booklist (November 1, 2012 (Vol. 109, No. 5))


Preschool-Grade 2. What happens on the very first day of different animals’ lives? Jenkins and Page depict 23 different animals (including a leatherback turtle, a giraffe, an emperor penguin, a polar bear, and a parent bug), each of whom narrates, in one or two sentences, what it could or could not do on day one. Some spreads contrast animals, such as the kiwi, who is self-sufficient from birth, and the Siberian tiger cub, who can’t even open its eyes. Occasionally a baby animal is given a full double-page spread, as with the wood duck, who jumps out of the nest on one page and paddles after its mother on the next. The vibrant colors of the cut-paper collages give this book a verve that fills the space of the spare narrations. A glossary at book’s end gives more information on each animal, so readers who are amazed, for example, that a mother zebra spends the first hour of her baby’s life memorizing the baby’s unique striped patterns, can find out more. Fun and very educational.

Cold Cereal

Horn Book (January/February, 2012)


In the town of Goodborough, home to the Goodco cereal company, new kid Scott Doe is seeing things. Specifically, a rabbit-headed man, a unicat, and a leprechaun named Mick. His only friends, brainy twins Erno and Emily Utz, are working on the latest puzzle their guardian has set them when a creepy Goodco "doctor" reveals they're subjects in a Goodco experiment. In a zany adventure filled with Arthurian references and sly parodies of popular breakfast cereals, Scott, Erno, and Emily set out to find the connection between the megalomaniac cereal company and magical beings enslaved for their "glamour," all the while keeping one step ahead of the Goodco goons who want to dissect Emily to analyze the results of their experiment. An expansive cast of colorful characters (including Merle Lynn, an accountant) keep the surprises coming. Cartoon illustrations of dramatic moments and drawn panels accompanying TV commercial scripts supplement the text. Rex takes his time mounting his preposterous edifice of a plot, but reader interest and suspension of disbelief never flag in this humorous, consistently entertaining, well-spun yarn. anita l. burkam

Splat the Cat with a Bang and a Clang

From the Publisher:


Splat's friends are having a rehearsal for their cool new band, the Cat Gang. But something's missing . . . it just doesn't feel right without Splat! Everyone wants Splat to join the band. But Splat can't sing and he doesn't play an instrument! What can he do that is perfect for the Cat Gang?



Beginning readers will cheer on Splat in his noisy and hilarious quest to become a member of the band.