Readers of this memorable novel will feel like winners, too.
A down-at-the-heels sweepstakes entrant discovers she’s had good luck all along.
Twelve-year-old white Olivia enters lotteries and contests hoping for a big payoff; maybe her family can leave their trailer park. Dad’s gone, Mom’s overworked, money’s tight. Olivia has more responsibilities than a kid should. She frequently misses school to watch over her 5-year-old sister, Berkeley, because day care is unaffordable; she’s their de facto teacher; and she does all household chores. She vents, but in a first-person, present-tense voice that’s distinct, colorful, richly imaginative, thoroughly authentic, often hilarious, and frequently heartbreaking. Readers will easily be drawn into Olivia’s experiences, sometimes-bizarre daydreams, and daily disappointments, and they will admire her resilience and fierce devotion to family. Though Olivia doesn’t credit it immediately, her neighbors are devoted to her too, not least quirky, white schoolmate Bart, self-proclaimed FBI agent, who becomes her steadfast friend. Meanwhile, neighbors are preparing to launch a first-ever community circus, an idea Olivia casually mentioned to give Berkeley something fun to contemplate—but never actually expected would materialize. A turning point when Olivia’s ordered to return to school and must secretly stow Berkeley strains credulity but is suspenseful and triggers an emotional, satisfying climax. Ellis develops her supporting cast with nuance and increases readers’ investment in Olivia with such details as her heartbreakingly one-sided correspondence to her father.
Readers of this memorable novel will feel like winners, too. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-10-199385-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
