The Fallen Star

March 15, 2017
The Noctural Brigade returns in the third installment in the eponymous series. Pangolin Tobin, sugar glider Bismark, and red fox Dawn are enjoying a meteor shower while sitting under Bismark's pomelo tree when suddenly, a ball of blinding light drops from the sky into the forest. Shaken and bruised, the trio finds itself in an altered landscape. When the friends locate the meteor, a mysterious and strange-looking creature emerges from it. The aye-aye, whose name is Iris, warns them of invaders who come from this -star-stone.- Unsettled from their run-in with Iris, the Brigade runs across a group of animals who have been poisoned after eating some fallen pomelos. With time working against them, the Nocturnal Brigade must find a cure for their sick friends and avoid the clutches of the meteor invaders. Hecht serves up both a curious adventure and interesting zoological facts in this volume. Her descriptions of flora, fauna, and natural phenomena are vivid and immediate. The multilingual and loquacious Bismark fuels a few good laughs; Tobin balances his clumsiness with limitless kindness; and brave Dawn keeps the crew focused on their mission. Likewise, the villains of the story display great depth of character. They remind readers that many times bad deeds arise from pain and mistreatment in the past. Fresh and fun: the brigade delights as it explores another forest mystery. (Fantasy. 7-12)

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May 15, 2017
Grades 4-7 The third installment in this popular series has our stalwart Nocturnals Brigade attempting to find an anecdote for poisoned pomelo melons. As in the first two books, the solution involves unusual animals (including scorpions, tiny marsupials called woylies, bandicoots, and an aye-aye, an endangered species that resembles a cross between a lemur and Gollum) and their unexpected behaviors. Our heroes hold fast to their established personas: Dawn is the wise and mysterious fox; Bismark is the vainglorious sugar glider who manages to rise to even greater levels of lovable obnoxiousness, and sweet Tobin is the plodding pangolin, whose heroics involve a skunklike spray he emits when threatened (severe ongoing distress in his lower tract leads to timely explosive emissions, Walter the Farting Dogstyle). Action abounds, and almost all of the short chapters end on cliff-hangers. Once again, the trio's mutual loyalty and dependence on each other's unique talentsbe they what they aresave the day. This is a worthy addition to the franchise.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)