So it appears—for Ramona now looks set to weather the advent of a baby sister! Lots happens in this latest installment of the Quinby family chronicles. Pal Jason's "rich" Uncle Herbert arrives from Saudi Arabia (looking "ordinary," in a muddy van), and in the to-do Ramona realizes that Jason's sitter-grandmother doesn't like her. "Until this minute she had thought all adults were supposed to like all children." She's through with going there after school, she announces at the family dinner table, and Beezus seconds her. (Why is Beezus so ready to stay home and look after Ramona? Junior-high troubles—aggravated by pimply skin.) Dad is too calm, too tolerant, now that he's studying to be a teacher—and with the teacher surplus that Aunt Bea has spoken of, will he get a job? Beezus has also caught intimations that Mother may not be working much longer, "because she's going to have a baby"—and the baby part doesn't sit well with Ramona at all. The direst possibility doesn't materialize: the Quinbys don't move from Portland to take the single, remote teaching job offered. Instead, Dad will become a manager for the supermarket-chain where he's been working part-time. (Like it? "We can't always do what we want in life," as today's theme goes, "so we do the best we can.") But these developments, and more (the death and burial of elderly puss Picky-picky), are briefly overshadowed by Aunt Bea's and Uncle Hobart's marriage—and the real wedding he speedily arranges for the Alaska-bound couple, over female protestations that it can't be done. It's a measure of Cleary's talent and acumen that the Quinbys are as credible in the mid-1980s as they were in the mid-1950s.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1984
ISBN: 0380709600
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1984
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
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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