A readable but essentially inconsequential addition to Clements’ oeuvre.
Clements draws on his memory of classroom fads for this newest exploration of sixth-grade politics.
Grace likes to collect things. When her grandfather takes her around the old New England mill he’s bought, she decides to add the dozens of boxes of buttons she finds there to her already-cluttered room. “I have a theory about why I collect so many things,” Grace adds intriguingly, but this motivation is never satisfyingly revealed. Described as “pretty,” she prefers scientific observation to trips to the mall and is slowly realizing the ways that her best friend, Ellie, who’s also “pretty,” makes her feel inadequate and unsupported. When Grace brings a handful of buttons to school as part of a social studies unit on the Industrial Revolution, other kids become inexplicably fascinated by them, and soon their school is overcome by a button craze reminiscent of the 17th-century Dutch tulip bubble or, more recently, Pogs. As trading and hoarding reach a fever pitch, Grace tries to navigate the destruction of one friendship, the start of another, and her own place in the middle school hierarchy. The button craze keeps the story tripping along, but somewhat broad characterizations and relatively low stakes—not to mention a perfectly neat ending—do not. Grace goes to an Illinois school where no one is identified racially, but all faces on the cover present white.
A readable but essentially inconsequential addition to Clements’ oeuvre. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-55759-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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