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Summary
Summary
Elliot Eisner isn't exactly excited about starting at a brand-new school in a brand-new town; he'd much rather stay at home and read a book. But things take an unexpected turn when he finds out his weird new teacher, Professor Fauna, has planned a field trip for Elliot's very first day. Along with a new friend-brave, outspoken Uchenna Devereaux-Elliot gets caught up in a secret group of adventurers, The Unicorn Rescue Society, whose goal is to protect and defend the world's mythical creatures. Together with Professor Fauna, Elliot and Uchenna must help rescue a Jersey Devil from a duo of conniving, greedy billionaires, the Schmoke Brothers.
Unicorn Rescue Society is an exciting and hilarious new series about friendship, adventure, and mythical creatures from around the world by Newbery Honor-winning author Adam Gidwitz teamed up with Mixtape Club founders Jesse Casey and Chris Smith, and Hatem Aly, illustrator of The Inquisitor's Tale .
Author Notes
Adam Gidwitz was born in San Francisco, California in 1982. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Columbia University. After graduating, he took a job in a second grade classroom at Saint Ann's School, in Brooklyn and attended Bank Street College of Education in the evenings. He eventually taught first, second, fifth, and high school at Saint Ann's before deciding to become a full-time author. He is the author of A Tale Dark and Grimm and In a Glass Grimly.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Kicking off the Unicorn Rescue Society series is a middle grade story filled with twists and turns and narrated in a fresh, fun style. Gidwitz (The Inquisitor¿s Tale) introduces animal enthusiast and basically ¿normal kid,¿ Elliot Eisner, whose first day at his new school is anything but ordinary. His class takes a field trip to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a forested area on the coast. On the bus ride, he befriends Uchenna Devereaux, who also started school late the previous year. While in the Pine Barrens with Miss Vole (their teacher), classmates, and a visiting instructor, the secretive and strange Professor Fauna, they hear of superstitions and tales that turn out to be real after Elliot and Uchenna come across a mysterious creature. The encounter ultimately leads them to the Unicorn Rescue Society, a group of adventurers committed to protecting mythological animals from the likes of the Schmoke brothers, two dastardly businessmen. Gidwitz delivers a quick-witted fantasy focused on supposedly imaginary creatures and finding like-minded friends, told from Elliot¿s fresh, young perspective. Though Elliot and Uchenna¿s burgeoning friendship and cooperation are emphasized, a more subtle lesson about fallibility and recovering from mistakes demonstrates slightly more complex, and necessary, life skills. Ages 8¿up. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Co. (Apr.)
Horn Book Review
Created by Jesse Casey, Adam Gidwitz, and Chris Smith. This collaboratively created series--told through the two newest members of a worldwide society of misfits dedicated to saving mythical creatures--is witty, fast-paced, hilarious, and great fun. Starring upper-elementary-age New Jersey kids Elliot and Uchenna, each book focuses on a different creature in need of protection. Abundant black-and-white drawings spotlight the zany characters and add to the laughs. [Review covers these Unicorn Rescue Society titles: The Basque Dragon, The Creature of the Pines, and Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot.] (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The Newbery Honor Book team behind The Inquisitor's Tale (2016) reunites to bring young readers the breezy Unicorn Rescue Society series. In this inaugural adventure, Elliott's new-school nerves are calmed slightly when he is befriended by Uchenna, a half Nigerian girl with a punk-rock vibe, on his first day. They stick together on a field trip to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, led by the terrifying social studies teacher Professor Fauna, and stumble upon a bizarre blue creature tangled in some ribbon. After freeing the animal (no easy feat!), it proceeds to follow them home and wreak havoc in the city. In an unlikely partnership, the new friends team up with Professor Fauna to try to catch the rogue animal. Gidwitz has written a rollicking tale with engaging characters and an irresistible premise involving a secret society dedicated to protecting mythical creatures. Aly's artwork, though unseen, will appear liberally throughout the text, further extending its appeal. Consider having Maggie Stiefvater's Pip Bartlett series on hand to tide readers over until the next installment arrives. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: There are big plans for this little book, including a national author tour and deluxe floor display.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
The premise is rich: How does one survive, let alone smile, in a world he feels desperately bound to leave? At 52 years old (a tween in a dwarf's life cycle), Borlen is a worry to his parents and a whipping boy among his gem-crunching peers. The scenes of his marginalization are painful and true - always the pebble, never the geode in games of Pebble, Pebble, Geode. When he escapes to the forbidden Surface, and allies himself with Queen Elfrieda Veronika Ingrid Lenore (E.V.I.L.), Grump convinces himself he's finally living his best life. But then his new bud starts kidnapping babies and demanding the murder of her stepdaughter, Snow White, and he's back under a dark cloud. Shurtliff excels at turning familiar worlds on their heads. The underground dwarf culture is wonderfully realized, and Grump's fascination with the Surface well drawn. She might have had more fun digging deeper and more consistently into Grump's earned foul spirit. But her Snow White is fresh, a little snotty but highly capable, with far more grit than her Prince. Together, Grump and the Princess are a welcome reminder that heroes needn't be perfect to get the job done. IN THE FIRST BOOK in Adam Gidwitz's new series, UNICORN RESCUESOCIETY: The Creature of the Pines (Dutton, 163 pp., $14.99; ages 7 to io), admission into the highly exclusive Unicorn Rescue Society requires pledging allegiance to the existence and protection of all things mythical: unicorn, chupacabra, mermaid - the creatures young children want as pets yet forever feel denied. It's an easy, fun hook for readers, who will likely see themselves in either the nervous and pale new kid at school, Elliot, or edgy Uchenna, a black girl with twists who first strikes Elliot as a "punk rock Beethoven." On a field trip into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the two stumble on a tiny blue dragonlike creature tangled in a pink ribbon. They pacify him with an almond bar and try to keep him hidden from their foreboding social studies teacher, Professor Fauna, who's like a cross between Gandalf and Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown. Admittedly, there's a sense of throatclearing to this series debut by Gidwitz (who won a Newbery Honor for "The Inquisitor's Tale"). The blue Jersey devil mostly remains zipped up in Uchenna's backpack, the villains hastily introduced and escaped from within a few pages, and the greater mission still unclear and ahead. Consider the book more a promise of grand adventures than one in the hand. But the rapport between nebbishy Elliot and impulsive Uchenna is already terrific, and the sight of a black girl's natural hair on the cover of a mainstream middle-grade book- the illustrations are by Hatem Aly - is something of a unicorn sighting itself. ??, HOW ODD and wonderful children will love a perfectly odd and wonderful little book by the acclaimed Scottish novelist A. L. Kennedy, uncle shawn and bill and THE ALMOST ENTIRELY UNPLANNED ADVENTURE (Kane Miller, 191 pp., $5.99; ages 7 to 10). Kennedy lets loose a zany adventure in which a handsome badger is kidnapped by the miserable McGloone family, which keeps a cupboard of knives for every wretched occasion from "peeling penguins" to "dicing goldfish." Also on the McGloone chopping block are four depressed llamas who are soon to be turned into llama puddings and dumplings and possibly even a handbag for the meaty matriarch Myrtle McGloone. Everyone's rescue depends on a crazyhaired, kindhearted uncle (whose uncle he is isn't revealed, because Kennedy delights in wordplay and wit, and appreciates the absurdity of unanswered questions) who has a faithful mole in one pocket of his tweed jacket and some cheese crackers in the other. Uncle Shawn has a half-baked plan to save the day, and hopes in the process to find himself the pleasure of new friends. The climax of escape is indeed a triumph, with the McGloones meeting an end befitting their outrageous terribleness. But the real fun here is the divinely cracked world Kennedy creates, matched nicely with Gemma Correll's very funny illustrations. Yes, please, to the villainous McGloone sisters and their eyes "like old, bad eggs" and "thick, greasy, left-over-sausage kind of lips." And to the nasty McGloone children named Fred, Dusty, Bettina, Socket Wrench and Small. And to random asides on matters like Things That Make a Wasp Giggle. Kennedy's ability to uncork all this cockamamie and turn it into an artful, and quite dear, breeze of a tale is a delight. Why shouldn't a badger who likes to snack on hot chocolate and lettuce sandwiches become best friends with a lonely and heroic grown man? THERE'S A GREAT respectful nod to "E.T." in BOB (Feiwel and Friends, 208 pp., $16.99; ages 7 to 10, the first joint effort of the powerhouse middle-grade authors Wendy Mass (the Twice Upon a Time series) and Rebecca Stead ("When You Reach Me"). A guileless green creature named Bob - who knows for sure that he's not a zombie, and is only pretending at being a chicken in his badly patched-together suit - lives in the attic of an old woman's house in the drought-ridden Australian outback. When 10-year-old Livy returns to visit her Gran after a five-year absence Bob is thrilled, if a little miffed, to be reunited with his only friend. "You're back. Took you long enough," he tells a stunned Livy, who's completely forgotten about her not-zombie friend. And he's quite unimpressed with how she's aged into a stammering, befuddled tween. "Livy was the kind of 5-year-old who could get things done." The chapters are told alternately from their points of view. Livy and Bob struggle to piece together just who and what Bob is, how he ended up in Gran's closet, and if there's any hope of him ever returning home. The heart of this wistful book comes from the loss of memories: Livy's of their younger friendship, and Bob's of his former life. How does one hang on to the innocence and wonder of childhood when the world conspires to drum it out of us? But these friends do find tethers to their forgotten selves - Livy a black chess piece that she keeps in her pocket to remind her of Bob's existence in the world, and Bob a copy of "Fairy and Folk Tales From A to Z" that proves he too has a past that claims him. The story's momentum flounders occasionally, with a little too much of Bob spinning in circles waiting on Livy and a couple of wooden plot machinations, but the ending is pure enchantment. It's the type of satisfying closure that makes a reader want to turn right back to Page 1 now that she knows how the whole puzzle fits together. It's hero's work trying to find one's inner child. It takes Livy a little green dude who's counted to 9,876,543,210 many times in her absence. ? KAREN VALBY is the author of "Welcome to Utopia: Notes From a Small Town."
Kirkus Review
Elliot's first day of school turns out to be more than he bargained for.Elliot Eisnerskinny and pale with curly brown hairis a bit nervous about being the new kid. Thankfully, he hits it off with fellow new student, "punk rock"-looking Uchenna Devereaux, a black girl with twists (though they actually look like dreads in Aly's illustrations). On a first-day field trip to New Jersey's Pine Barrens, the pair investigates a noise in the trees. The cause? A Jersey Devil: a blue-furred, red-bellied and -winged mythical creature that looks like "a tiny dragon" with cloven hooves, like a deer's, on its hind feet. Unwittingly, the duo bonds with the creature by feeding it, and it later follows them back to the bus. Unsurprisingly, they lose the creature (which they alternately nickname Jersey and Bonechewer), which forces them to go to their intimidating, decidedly odd teacher, Peruvian Professor Fauna, for help in recovering it. The book closes with Professor Fauna revealing the truthhe heads a secret organization committed to protecting mythical creaturesand inviting the children to join, a neat setup for what is obviously intended to be a series. The predictable plot is geared to newly independent readers who are not yet ready for the usual heft of contemporary fantasies. A brief history lesson given by a mixed-race associate of Fauna's in which she compares herself to the American "melting pot" manages to come across as simultaneously corrective and appropriative.Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers. (Fantasy. 7-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Unicorns are real. At least, I think they are. Dragons are definitely real. I have seen them. Chupacabras exist, too. Also Sasquatch. And mermaids--though they are not what you think. But back to unicorns. When I, Professor Mito Fauna, was a young man, I lived in the foothills of Peru. One day, there were rumors in my town of a unicorn in danger, far up in the mountains. At that instant I founded the Unicorn Rescue Society--I was the only member--and set off to save the unicorn. When I finally located it, though, I saw that it was not a unicorn, but rather a qarqacha, the legendary two-headed llama of the Andes. I was very slightly disappointed. I rescued it anyway. Of course. Now, many years later, there are members of the Unicorn Rescue Society all around the world. We are sworn to protect all the creatures of myth and legend. Including unicorns! If we ever find them! Which I'm sure we will! But our enemies are powerful and ruthless, and we are in desperate need of help. Help from someone brave and kind and curious, and brave. (Yes, I said "brave" twice. It's important.) Will you help us? Will you risk your very life to protect the world's mythical creatures? Will you join the Unicorn Rescue Society? I hope so. The creatures need you. Defende Fabulosa! Protege Mythica! --Mito Fauna, DVM, PhD, EdD, etc. Chapter One Elliot Eisner stood at the front of the bus, looking down the long aisle. Every seat was full. The other children scowled at him. At least, Elliot was pretty sure they were scowling at him. He was the new kid, starting school three weeks into the new school year. Who starts a new school three weeks into the year? he thought. Three weeks! It's far too late to make friends. The year is practically over! Elliot considered turning around and walking back to his new house, where his mom and grandma were unpacking boxes. But that would just make things worse. Tomorrow, when he was forced to come back to school, he would be the kid who'd flipped out and run away on his first day. Not a good first impression. Worst of all, his class was going on a field trip. On his very first day at school. Things just weren't supposed to work like that. He wasn't prepared . Elliot sighed and began to walk slowly down the length of the bus. Maybe there were a couple of empty seats in the back. The kids stared at him. He slouched past. They think I'm a weirdo . This made no sense. Elliot was not a weirdo. He was a normal kid. A little pale, kinda skinny, lots of curly brown hair. Pretty normal. But Elliot did not feel normal. Not on his first day at a new school, on a field trip he was not prepared for, surrounded by kids he did not know. There were some empty seats in the back. One was next to a big boy with a shaved head, who smiled at him and then farted. Elliot would not be sitting there. There was a seat next to a girl who was digging in her nose like she'd lost something. Then, she found it. Elliot would not be sitting there, either. Finally, he saw a seat in the very last row, next to a girl who looked like the lead singer in a punk rock band. She wore a gray jean jacket and gray jeans and red high-tops, and her hair was an explosion of black twists. The girl was rocking back and forth like she was listening to music. But there were no earphones in her ears. Punk rock Beethoven , Elliot thought. This one thinks she's a punk rock Beethoven. But at least she's not finding buried treasure up her nose or playing the tuba through her butt. He sat down next to her. She stopped rocking. "Hi," she said. "I'm Uchenna." "I'm Elliot. I'm new here." Obvious! Elliot silently shouted at himself. Don't say things that are obvious! "This is my first day." Everybody knows that! "Even though school started three weeks ago." Why are you stating facts that everyone knows?!?! Uchenna said, "I was new last year. I didn't start school till after Christmas." You see, she knew--Wait, what? Then Elliot said, "I thought I was the only person so horrendously unlucky to be forced to start a new school in the middle of the year." Uchenna threw her head back and laughed. "No," she said. "There's two of us." And that is how Elliot Eisner and Uchenna Devereaux became friends. Chapter Two The class's teacher was Miss Vole. Elliot liked to memorize books about animals--it was one of his hobbies--so he knew that voles are kind of like mice, but even smaller, with tiny eyes and plump little bodies. As Miss Vole stood up from her seat at the front of the bus, Elliot leaned over to Uchenna and whispered, "Isn't it weird that she looks just like her name?" Uchenna smiled. "I think about that all the time." Miss Vole cleared her voice. "Now, children," she said. She spoke like they were in kindergarten. She made her eyes very large, and if her voice got any higher, only dogs would be able to hear her. "Children, I expect you to be on your very best behavior." Very best was just about in dogs-only territory. "We have a special guest with us today for our field trip ." Uchenna put her fingers in her ears so her eardrums wouldn't explode. Elliot snickered and did the same. Miss Vole went on, "His name is Professor Fauna." It sounded like Fow -na. "Can you say Professor Fauna ?" "Why wouldn't we be able to say that?" Elliot whispered. Uchenna laughed and then shoved her fist into her mouth to stifle the sound. "Professor Fauna," the children chanted. And then, the professor stepped onto the bus, and it was as if a shadow had fallen over the whole class. Uchenna stopped laughing at once. Elliot gripped the green vinyl of the seat. The professor was tall, with a thick beard that was half black, half gray. His hair stood up from his scalp like he was in the habit of kissing electric eels. He wore a threadbare tweed suit and leather shoes that looked like they had been really fancy once, long ago. "Buenos días , mis amigos," he said. His voice sounded like someone had put rocks in a blender. Uchenna leaned over to Elliot. She wasn't smiling anymore. "He's a social studies teacher here. Everyone's terrified of him. They say he's totally unhinged from reality." "Is he dangerous?" Elliot asked. He didn't like things that were dangerous unless they were animals, and he only liked dangerous animals if he was memorizing facts about them from a book. Uchenna shrugged. "Maybe." "Good morning," said Professor Fauna, and he rolled his R s so much, morning had four syllables. "I am Mito Fauna. You may call me Professor Fauna, Doctor Fauna, or Doctor Doctor Fauna, since I am both a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, with a specialty in large and rare species, and a Doctor of Philosophy, with a specialty in global mythology. In Germany, they call me Herr Doktor Doktor Professor, but you do not need to do that, because it takes too long, and it sounds silly. Also, I am not German, but Peruvian. Do you understand?" Every child said "No," at exactly the same time. "Excellent," the professor replied, evidently not hearing them. "Miss Vole has asked me to be your guide today on this field trip to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. You will listen to me." All the children nodded. "You will do what I say." They still nodded. "If not, you will DIE !" The children sat straight up in their seats. "Not that I will kill you," Professor Fauna added. "But there are many dangerous things in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey! So be careful, and do exactly as I tell you." No one on the bus said a word. But silently, every child decided that, yes, they better do whatever this terrifying teacher said. Chapter Three The bus drove from their school down the highway. They passed a big building with a maze of pipes and tanks and vats attached to it. Hundreds of chimneys spewed smoke high into the air. Across one of the big white vats ran the words: schmoke industries, making the world the way we want it to be. Elliot reached below his seat and dug through his backpack. He pulled out a bar wrapped in shiny foil. "What's that?" Uchenna asked. "It's a snack bar." Elliot held it out to her. It looked like nuts glued together with honey. "My mom and grandma make them for me. This is from my mom, because it doesn't have raisins. My grandma always puts raisins in the bars she makes." "Interesting." Elliot eyed Uchenna skeptically. "Do you really think that's interesting? Or are you being sarcastic?" "No, I think it's interesting. Grandmas are wrinkly, usually. Raisins are wrinkly, always. Coincidence? Of course not." "No, I definitely think it's a coincidence." Uchenna pondered for a moment. "Nah. No way. Conspiracy." She started drumming on the back of the big green seat in front of them. Her hands picked up speed, thumping with her left and tapping with her right. And then, to Elliot's great surprise, she started to sing. Quietly and melodically: "Old ladies are like raisins, Not just because they're sweet tastin'. Some are brown, Some are golden, All of them are wrinkly, And most of all . . . they're amazin'!" Uchenna stopped singing. "Old ladies are 'sweet tasting'?" said Elliot. "Yeah, that part needs some work," Uchenna muttered. The big yellow bus pulled into a dirt parking lot. There were no other cars or buses there. The children filed off and stood in a clump. Pine trees, tall and crooked and scraggly, stood in a line around the edge of the parking area. The wind blew dust into their faces. "Children!" Miss Vole said, and somewhere a dog woke up. "It's time to follow Professor Fauna!" The professor led the group to the beginning of a trail. An old map, tattered, yellowed, and torn straight through the middle, was pinned to a crumbling plywood bulletin board. Elliot stopped and squinted up at the map. "What are you doing?" Uchenna asked. "I like to memorize maps when I go somewhere new, so I'll know how to make an escape," Elliot replied. "Why would you need to make an escape?" said Uchenna. "You never know." "How true," said a deep voice behind them. They spun around. The professor was peering down from under his weed-like eyebrows. "You may indeed need to make an escape from the Pine Barrens, for as I have said, they can be deadly. But don't bother trying to memorize that map. Between the many forkings of the roads, and the fire cuts that look like roads but are not , it is almost impossible to find your way out. It is almost like . . . a trap ." Professor Fauna smiled at them broadly, and then suddenly turned away. Elliot and Uchenna watched the professor start for the woods. "Why would he say that?" Elliot asked. "Teachers are supposed to be reassuring. That was the opposite of reassuring . " Uchenna just stared after the professor, shaking her head. "They say his office is a torture chamber, under the school. No one's allowed in it. Even the janitors." "Whoa." "Also," she added, "I heard he believes in unicorns." Excerpted from The Creature of the Pines by Adam Gidwitz, Jesse Casey, Christopher Smith All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
