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PENINA LEVINE IS A HARD-BOILED EGG

Name: PENINA LEVINE IS A HARD-BOILED EGG
Author: Rebecca O’Connell
ISBN: 1-59643-140-7

by Rebecca O’Connell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2007

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Life for Penina is becoming more combative. Her bratty four-year-old sister, Mimsy, is continually tattling and getting Penina grounded for inappropriate behavior. Her teacher, Ms. Anderson, is threatening her with a zero when Penina, who is Jewish, has misgivings and refuses to complete a required assignment related to Easter. And best friend Zozo provides very little moral support, and is sure Ms. Anderson will “flunk” Penina for missing three days of school to attend the family Seders out of town. Unwilling to confront her parents, who are already angry with her, Penina confides her problems to Grandma while peeling hard-boiled eggs for the Seder. Grandma quietly intercedes to make sure Penina gets some adult support. Her parents intervene at school to clear up the misunderstanding between a first-year teacher’s misguided good intentions and a sensitive religious issue. Through it all, Penina’s resilience strengthens as her predicament becomes heated much the way an egg hardens as it cooks in hot water. Well-crafted multiple themes are integrated into a captivating, realistic middle-grade novel where conflicts are addressed, if not resolved, in pragmatic and convincing scenarios. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: March 1, 2007

ISBN: 1-59643-140-7

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Deborah Brodie/Roaring Brook

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
BABY PARADE
by Rebecca O’Connell ; illustrated by Susie Poole

- BOOK REVIEW
PENINA LEVINE IS A POTATO PANCAKE
by Rebecca O’Connell & illustrated by Majella Lue Sue

- BOOK REVIEW
MYRTLE OF WILLENDORF
by Rebecca O’Connell

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RETURN TO SENDER

by Julia Alvarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 13, 2009

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.

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Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.

Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ALREADY A BUTTERFLY
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Raúl Colón

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE DO THEY GO?
by Julia Alvarez ; illustrated by Sabra Field

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TÍA LOLA ENDED UP STARTING OVER
by Julia Alvarez

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)