The pace in this debut is leisurely, but readers, like the town folk and his newfound family, will be rooting for Frankie...
While his mom is in jail, Frankie Joe tries to adjust to living with his newly surfaced father, FJ, his stepmother and “the four legitimate Huckaby sons.”
The brothers tease Frankie Joe because, academically, he is “freaky slow,” which is at odds with how fast he is when he runs or bikes. The tension and the cast of characters are well-developed, especially Frankie Joe, who is believably resistant to the new setting and the rules of the house. Speaking in the first-person, Frankie Joe shows spunk, spinning the taunt into a positive when he launches Frankie Joe’s Freaky Fast Delivery Service. With his income, he plans his escape back home from Illinois to Texas. But with each day Frankie Joe becomes more integrated into—and essential to—the town and the family, starting with his friendship with another town oddball, elderly Miss Peachcott. She tells Frankie Joe his family history. With this reveal, the author realistically depicts Frankie Joe’s growing doubts about his mother’s decisions. His mother’s final act, abandoning him to FJ, leaves Frankie Joe grief-stricken and depressed but he now has a new understanding of what responsibility and home mean.
The pace in this debut is leisurely, but readers, like the town folk and his newfound family, will be rooting for Frankie Joe. The final scenes soar with hope. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2367-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Not the most satisfying wrap-up, but it’s always good to spend time in the world of this series.
Beloved gorilla Ivan becomes a father to rambunctious twins in this finale to a quartet that began with 2012’s Newbery Award–winning The One and Only Ivan.
Life hasn’t always been easy for silverback gorilla Ivan, who’s spent most of his life being mistreated in captivity. Now he’s living in a wildlife sanctuary, but he still gets to see his two best friends. Young elephant Ruby lives in the grassy habitat next door, and former stray dog Bob has a home with one of the zookeepers. All three were rescued from the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. Ivan’s expanded world includes fellow gorilla Kinyani—the two are about to become parents, and Ivan is revisiting the traumas of his past in light of what he wants the twins to know. When the subject inevitably comes up, Applegate’s trust and respect for readers is evident. She doesn’t shy away from hard truths as Ivan wrestles with the fact that poachers killed his family. Readers will need the context provided by knowledge of the earlier books to feel the full emotional impact of this story. The rushed ending unfortunately falls flat, detracting from the central message that a complex life can still contain hope. Final art not seen.
Not the most satisfying wrap-up, but it’s always good to spend time in the world of this series. (gorilla games, glossary, author’s note) (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780063221123
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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