Proof positive that an open heart can overcome hurt.
Eleven-year-old Raymond gains what his mother lacks: self-knowledge and roots.
When Raymond is sent to spend the summer with his grandparents in Maine, he’s sure it’s punishment for the trouble he and best friend Trixy caused during his dad’s last music tour. Raymond doesn’t remember his mother Abigail’s parents, probably because Abigail abandoned Raymond, his sister, and dad years ago. His grandparents sure don’t know Raymond: They call him “backward” and encourage him to go biking, swimming—make friends! Raymond doesn’t know how to do any of those things, but he’s determined to learn. Despite his doubts and discomfort, Raymond is genuine and funny in all his interactions. The colorful cast of mostly White characters is well drawn, as is the small town of Winter’s Peak. Raymond slowly realizes he’s making connections with people of all ages, plus one chicken, and that each individual’s story is becoming intertwined with his own. He draws on them all—his experiences and theirs—when Abigail shows up for an unannounced, self-serving visit to her parents. Raymond thinks he tells himself lies, but he bravely confronts the truth about Abigail: She cannot love him the way he deserves to be loved. It’s a gut punch made bearable because Raymond has developed the core strength and friendships to help him through. This heartfelt, emotionally insightful companion to To Tell You the Truth (2021) is accessible to readers unfamiliar with the previous book.
Proof positive that an open heart can overcome hurt. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-088-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
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