The elements of a good story are present, but its telling lacks resonance, character development and depth of understanding.
A mother who disappears, two brothers left alone and a seemingly kindly neighbor make up the ingredients of this unsuccessful story about troubled families.
Eleven-year-old Curtis has always helped care for his little brother while their mother works and attends school. Now she has not come home, rent is due and food is running out. Haunted by memories of a horrible foster-care family with whom he stayed the first time his mother left him, Curtis fears that he will be separated from his little brother. Then strange but kindly Mrs. Burt, who lives across the street, offers money and meals. When she takes them to a remote lakeside cabin in British Columbia for the summer, Curtis is slowly drawn into this brave new world of chopping wood, building an outhouse and fishing. In truth, Mrs. Burt has “absconded” with the children because she mourns her son who drowned in the lake 40 years ago. Curtis’ mother has not run off but has been badly injured and is lying in a coma. In a few pages of the finale, the narrative flow abruptly wraps up, leaving too many loose ends and unanswered questions. Curtis’ first-person narration necessarily limits readers’ access to the puzzle, and his easy acceptance of the big reveal strains credulity.
The elements of a good story are present, but its telling lacks resonance, character development and depth of understanding. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55498-131-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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