Johnny on the Spot - Hardcover

Vigorous illustrations of 1920s scenes animate this uneven melodrama, a blend of nostalgia and science fiction. Johnny, a youth wearing knickers and argyle socks, follows broadcast adventure serials. When his beloved radio gives up the ghost, Johnny takes it to an inventor for repairs. The man doesn't know much about appliances: "My specialty is time travel," he says. But he applies "a small charge of electrostatic magnetism," and the radio revives. Better yet, it now announces the news a day in advance (a la TV's Early Edition). Johnny earns his "on the spot" nickname by showing up at the scene of a bank holdup and a fire (and helping out), but the lure of easy money threatens on a day at the races ("It's not gambling... We know which horse will win," the inventor begs). Sorel, known for his New Yorker cover art, constructs an enticing cinematic world of brownstones and sepia-tinted interiors. His gestural scribbles of ink, applied in darting and sweeping zigzags, give the impression of rapid progress, while his earth-tone watercolor palette suggests budding technology. Yet the plot fails to ignite, then wraps up too neatly. The time-travel genre cliches (the boy, the eccentric inventor, the discovery, the abuse of power) recall the convoluted plots of radio shows, but Johnny's moral dilemma is solved too readily when his parents junk the "broken" Zenith and buy a Philco. Ages 5-9.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a wonderful, transporting story, set in New York City during the early 1900s, Johnny has just listened to the last gasps of his old radio. His family, living in a building under a bridge, can't afford a new one. So Johnny asks a neighbor, Mr. Zaga, a man known to be an inventor, if he can coax life from the old box. Mr. Zaga confesses little knowledge of radios, but suggests they blast it with an under-powered time machine he is working on, and the radio starts to spout tomorrow's news. Mr. Zaga warns Johnny not to tamper with the future, and Johnny must do some fancy dancing to thwart a bank robbery and to save a girl from a burning building, earning the moniker ``Johnny-on-the-spot'' from the local news establishment. Then he and Mr. Zaga make a boodle during a day at the horse races. When they return home, they find a new radio, a reward for Johnny's daring exploits, and the old radio has gone out with the trash. Adults may quibble over the way Johnny and Mr. Zaga redistribute the betting world's wealth, but it feels natural and right in this context. Sorel's artwork acts almost as a time machine itself; it has the character and energy to lift readers from their seats and set them down in the Big Apple some 70 years ago. (Picture book. 5-9) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.