Review: Max Fernsby and the Infinite Toys

By Gerry Swallow and Peter Gaulke

Illustrations by Marta Kissi

New York: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023. Fiction. 201 pages.

Max Fernsby is a 10-year-old kid that has a hard life. One day a bag falls on his head and Max decides that he will keep it. It turns out that it is Santa’s bag that transports toys from the North Pole for Santa when he uses it on Christmas Eve. Now Max has the power to produce any toy that he wants… just by thinking about it. Max and his two friends decide to make kids’ lives happier --all for the sweet cost of less than what they would have to buy the toys for online. Of course, this upsets the greedy businessman who has bought up all the toy stores in the city so that everyone has to buy Christmas gifts from him. And the two elves who lost the bag while on a joyride in Santa’s sleigh are worried about getting the bag back and how much trouble they will get into once they get back to the North Pole.

This is a fun new Christmas story for kids who often wish they could have any toy they wanted.

Comments

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: Fowl Play

Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...

Five Faves: Picture Books About Wolves

There are a lot of great picture books that have wolves in them. Wolves are beautiful, strong creatures that can also represent scary things (like in the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood). Here are five great new-ish picture books that feature wolves, for those kids who love to howl at the moon. Full Moon Pups Written by Liz Garton Scanlon Illustrated by Chuck Groenink New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2023. Picture Book. This is a beautifully illustrated story about a pack of new wolf pups and how they grow over the course of one moon’s cycle, from full moon to new moon and back again. Readers will see how the new pups don’t open their eyes for days, how they start to explore the world around them, and how the older members of the pack take care of them. The book also includes information about the phases of the moon at the end. Little Good Wolf By Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel Boston: Clarion Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publi...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog