Not So Normal Norbert

May 28, 2018
Conformity is the ironclad rule on the United State of Earth, where individuality and imagination are banned, and middle school students wearing mandatory gray jumpsuits pledge subservience to the despotic Loving Leader daily. The laws of the land don’t sit well with seventh-grader Norbert Riddle, a creative cut-up who has lived with his servile aunt and uncle since his parents were whisked away by the Truth Police. Arrested after doing a mocking impersonation of Loving Leader, Norbert is banished to another planet to live at Astro-Nuts Camp for young earthlings who are deemed “different and dangerous.” He attempts to convince the camp honchos that he is a die-hard conformist loyal to Loving Leader, in hopes that he’ll be sent back to Earth and find his parents. Buoyed by Aly’s boisterous drawings, Norbert’s droll wordplay, wisecracking banter, and oddball characters, the comedy reaches farcical heights before careening to an unforeseen conclusion. The authors balance the inanity with real-life, affecting emotion, convincingly depicting Norbert’s fright as well as his yearning for his parents. A parting clue that Norbert has another space adventure ahead should get a thumbs-up from readers. Ages 8–12.

June 15, 2018
In the United State of Earth, where difference is a disease and creativity is a crime, Norbert cracks a joke--big mistake.Seventh-grader Norbert Riddle lives a dreary life in Loving Leader's authoritarian regime, unsuccessfully searching for his parents since they disappeared seven years ago. When he impetuously performs an impression of Loving Leader for his classmates, the Truth Police descend, and Norbert is exiled to "the Astro-Nuts prison on planet Zorquat Three." Clocking in at 300-plus pages with little real action or humor, this attempt at a humorous twist on the dystopian genre falls short across the board. With just a glimpse of the dictatorship compared to the vast majority of the book describing the prison, some readers will have a difficult time inhabiting Norbert's perspective--is an ice cream sundae unusual because it's breakfast or because it's something he's never had before? Stilted phrasing, particularly to create tension at the end of chapters, backfires and makes the text drag. Constant use of language casually dismissive of mental diversity assumes an outmoded sensibility. Primary characters are described by hair color and have (paper-) white skin in the illustrations.Not nearly as nonconformist--or funny--as the title promises. (Dystopian adventure. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2018
Grades 4-6 Pulling the rug out from under a conventional scenario, the protagonist of this latest Jimmy book campaigns to be sent back to his literally gray and dismal police state planet after an illegal display of imagination lands him in a camp for misfits. To be sure, Norbert does have an ulterior motive: to track down his parents, who were arrested years before by the Truth Police. But the 12-year-old exile has a natural talent for improv and a satiric impersonation of the United States of Earth's megalomaniac Loving Leader. In no time, he's hosting a Saturday Night Live-style TV show that becomes a huge hit on two planets and portends (perhaps in sequels) revolution. Loving Leader's big-screen rants clearly tweaks 1984, but even readers unfamiliar with that classic will chortle at the relentless wordplay, a supporting cast made up almost entirely of caricatured grown-ups and young pranksters, and Norbert's winning mix of glibness and gullibility. Aly's scribbly ink-and-wash line drawings add punchlines as well as comical portraits of the major characters. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Like the rest of his canon, Patterson's middle-grade titles fly off the shelves. This latest from his eponymous imprint will do just fine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)