The Fourteenth Goldfish is a clever novel that offers depth with humor while intersecting science and childhood in a memorable story perfect for sharing aloud with boys or girls.
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Blog: The Children's Book Review (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Jen Robinson (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: middle grade fiction, london, Newsletter, twins, Late Elementary School, immortality, talking animals, chocolate shop, magic, Reviews, Add a tag
Book: The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop
Author: Kate Saunders
Pages: 304
Age Range: 9 and up
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop has such an appealing cover and title that I pulled it immediately onto my short stack of books to read, without any real idea of what it was about. It wasn't quite what I expected (the chocolate shop in the book is long closed, and was never called The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop in the first place), but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop is an adventure set in a modern-day version of London in which magic lurks around every corner, carefully hidden from non-magical folk. But no, it's not a Harry Potter knock-off. It's a lighter concoction, with a vain immortal talking cat, parents who are self-absorbed to the extent of missing, well, everything, and a villain who ends up being more pathetic than scary.
The story begins when eleven-year-old twins Oz and Lily move with their parents into a house that their dad has just inherited from his great uncle. The house includes the workshop for the chocolate shop that the uncle used to run with his triplet brothers. Oz and Lily soon learn that the family was brought to house so that they, together with a magical young neighbor, could use their innate magic to help stop a crime. The whole thing is over-the-top ridiculous (eleven year olds working for a secret division of MI6, an invisible elephant ghost?), but quite entertaining. There are a couple of more serious elements to the story, but nothing as dark as you'll see in most current middle grade fantasy.
I found the characterization in The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop to be a little thin - I never had much of an impression of Caydon, the neighbor who joins Oz and Lily in their quest. Even Oz and Lily won't stay with me as characters, I don't think. But Saunders is great at building worlds that kids will find appealing, and that goes a long way. Like this:
"For a long moment they stood in silence, gazing around a large room that looked like a dusty cave crammed with extraordinary objects. It was dominated by a large, deep fireplace with a grill like a barbecue. A big metal cylinder, festooned with cobwebs, loomed in one corner and in the middle of the room was a long bench with a marble top. On top of this stood a flat, smooth stone with an ashy grate underneath it..." (Page 9)
"This was amazing. He was in a cavern, its roof hidden by thick black shadows. The desert of darkness was punctuated by little puddles of lamplight, showing groups of furniture like rooms in an invisible house. At the far end of the space Oz saw a laboratory gleaming with glass tubes and jars. One pool of light contained a carved wooden bed covered with a faced green quilt; another contained a white bathtub like a boat, half hidden behind a screen covered with pictures of castles." (Page 79)
Although Saunders wraps everything up neatly at the end of The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, it would be a shame to let her Secret Ministry of the Unexplained (SMU) (not to mention the talking roses on Lily's wallpaper) fade away. Perhaps we'll see other adventures for Lily, Oz, and their talking cat. I, for one, would not be able to resist reading them.
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (@RandomHouseKids)
Publication Date: March 12, 2013
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
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© 2013 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook.
Blog: Books, Boys, Buzz (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: marine biology, science, Alyson Noel, immortality, immortal, Add a tag
So it grows to maturation, propagates, and then turns back into a juvenile! This isn't to say that they never die; but they don't need to die and therefore have the potential to be immortal.
I'm all for immortality! The one thing I don't get in books is when there is just a huge drama about whether then love interest of an immortal should/wants to become immortal, too. I mean, what's to think about? Neverending life with a supernatural hottie. And if he turns bad or boring you can always find (or make) another. Where's the downside?
For my YA novel, a character's mom is a nanotechnology specialist. I elaborate on the research (of course), but it's based on the reality that nanotechnology will - within the decade - lead to bone regrowth after removing tumors, antibiotics that work in minutes rather than days, much more!
Erica
I hear you, Tera!
Exciting stuff, Erica! Sounds like a cool book and I just can't believe how far medical technology has come and is possibly going to go even in our lifetime.
While I agree immortality is fascinating, I find I can't get enough about learning about man's beginnings...so when there's breaking news about new fossils from early man--especially those that challenge what we currently believe as truths--I am all over it!
Thanks for the shout-out!! And you know, even though I write about Immortality, I wouldn't chose it for myself--it seems a little lonely (so many good byes!) and exhausting too!
:)
Yeah, I'm with Alyson. Immortality sounds boring and long....
Heather
I'm in the same school as Alyson and Heather...immortality might sound cool, but it's really kinda tragic..!
That is amazing!