Less flavorful than its ancestors, Barbara Cohen’s The Carp in the Bathtub (1972) and Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family...
Rosenthal debuts with a slim, easily readable free-verse novel from the perspective of a girl who feels enveloped but lost in her enormous family.
Eleven-year-old Edith, fourth among her parents’ 12 children, feels that “[i]n my overcrowded family / I’m just another face. / I’m just plain Edith / of no special place.” Old enough to care for siblings and work her parents’ diner until almost two in the morning, young enough to care about a Shirley Temple doll, Edith needs a teacher’s nudge to find an identity. “[T]he Depression + lots of kids = never enough money,” so leaky shoes need cardboard, clothes are “hand-me-down / down / down / down / downs” and the family almost loses their house (but doesn’t). Contemporary, recession-aware readers will relate to Edith’s financial woes and also her realization that other people are even poorer. The author uses her mother’s history of growing up Jewish in Depression-era Baltimore as a basis, describing a certain kind of American Judaism (cheating on kosher rules with crab cakes; celebrating Christmas as Jews “because here in America / we can celebrate / anything we want”) and family tragedy in bare-bones verse so simple that the occasional rhyme is startling.
Less flavorful than its ancestors, Barbara Cohen’s The Carp in the Bathtub (1972) and Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family series, this is still a good companion for them. (author’s note, family photos, glossary) (Free verse/historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-61084-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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
A warm bundle of holiday cheer.
In a funny, feel-good tale, 12-year-old twins separated at birth meet by chance and try to pull off a family switch during the December holidays.
The girls, who are cued white, agree that it would be a delicious prank, but each has a personal motive, too: Aviva Davis, who was adopted by a culturally Jewish mom and a Black dad who was raised Christian, wonders what it’s like to celebrate Christmas. Budding author Holly Martin, who was adopted by a white-presenting single mom, sees a golden opportunity to gather experiences for a school writing assignment about facing her fears. In a plot as sweet as a Hanukkah jelly doughnut and twisty as a Christmas cinnamon roll, the pair just manages to bail one another out of a string of sticky situations—both hilarious and otherwise. They both learn something of the customs and meaning of the two holidays while working through tears and laughter—not to mention conflicts sparked by their very different personalities. Everything culminates in a holiday performance at a local senior center that will have readers rising up to cheer them on. Though their history remains tantalizingly mysterious, for the protagonists, who narrate alternating chapters, it’s mission accomplished and more: Aviva emerges feeling more secure in her Jewish identity, while anxious Holly discovers unexpected depths of courage.
A warm bundle of holiday cheer. (song lyrics) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250360670
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
© 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.
