LitBit Speaks

Like a bolt from the blue, Jack's little sister Maddy is gone—carried into another realm by an ogre.  When Jack and Lilly follow Maddy’s captor through the portal, they are ready for anything . . . except what they find waiting for them in the floating crossroads between worlds. Even the power of their magic plants may not be enough to get them back to earth alive. Alone and injured, Jack and Lilly must each face their own monsters—as well as giants who grind the bones of human children to feed their “beast” and a fearsome goblin king in the sewers down below. But when Jack finds himself in a tough spot, help comes from the most unlikely person: the goblin king! This is the sequel to Mighty Jack and it is fabulous! There's the action and adventure that we've come to expect from Ben Hatke. The illustrations are detailed, colourful, and the plot will keep pretty much anyone's attention! The story captures a really important and interesting time in young people...

Jack might be the only kid in the world who's dreading summer. But he's got a good reason: summer is when his single mom takes a second job and leaves him at home to watch his autistic kid sister, Maddy. It's a lot of responsibility, and it's boring, too, because Maddy doesn't talk. Ever. But then, one day at the flea market, Maddy does talk—to tell Jack to trade their mom's car for a box of mysterious seeds. It's the best mistake Jack has ever made. What starts as a normal little garden out back behind the house quickly grows up into a wild, magical jungle with tiny onion babies running amok, huge, pink pumpkins that bite, and, on one moonlit night that changes everything…a dragon. I love Hatke's work. Each one has its own charm, it's own power. Mighty Jack  is a fabulous new take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, with strong characters, intriguing new dynamics and new and more menacing evils than even the original versions of the story. Jac...