A pleasant, if somewhat derivative, time-travel adventure for early readers.
Twins travel back to Coney Island in 1928 in this chapter book and series opener.
Nine-year-old twins Emma and Simon are excited about their sleepover at their grandmother’s New York City apartment. They request her help with a school project about their family history. She tells them the story of how her parents met on a trolley returning from Coney Island, when Jessie threw peanut shells on Jack’s lap to get him to notice her. To illuminate the tale, she shows the twins a snow globe depicting the Cyclone roller coaster on Coney Island. Watching the snow swirl, Emma and Simon are transported back to June 1928, shortly after the opening of the Cyclone. They immediately see three young women who appear to be Jessie and her two sisters. The twins follow them, quickly determining that they are indeed the children’s great-grandmother and great-great aunts. Curious to witness the meeting of Jack and Jessie on the trolley, Simon and Emma quickly realize that their intervention is essential to guarantee the encounter. Once they ensure their great-grandparents’ meeting takes place as their grandmother described, the two return to her apartment and their next adventure is suggested. Although the concept is strongly reminiscent of Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series, the use of a snow globe as the magical feature is singular and the plot is far simpler in this tale, aimed at readers ages 6 to 9. Educator and attorney Stoller (co-author: The Parent-Child Book Club, 2009) does not use the time-travel aspect to impart historical information. The characters and setting are the heart of the enjoyable story. Metler-Smith’s (Swensons, Penick, and the TCR, 2016) black-and-white images are attractive, although the lack of color is puzzling. (Neither the narrative nor illustrations address diversity.) The book includes discussion questions, a recipe for apple crisp (integral to the story), and a craft project, all of which enhance the tale. There is also a photograph of the real-life Jessie and Jack, on whom the book is based.
A pleasant, if somewhat derivative, time-travel adventure for early readers.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946101-23-5
Page Count: 102
Publisher: Spork
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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