A quality, truthful portrayal of the general challenges that come with different experiences of the world, whether personal...
Change is hard for most people, but it’s especially tough for Willa.
She and her best friend, Ruby, are very different. Willa is 11, white, book-loving, tall, and vegetarian, and she unashamedly loves LEGOs and dogs. Ruby is (a smidge) younger, short, sporty, Indian-American, lactose intolerant, and anxious. Willa also has sensory processing disorder, but she staunchly prefers to keep that side of herself “private,” just among family. They are in the same fifth-grade class, and they initially connected over a love of gummy bears. They also both happen to have divorced parents. Now Willa’s dad and Ruby’s mom tell the girls they’ve been dating for some time, and they’re “sure [they’re] in love.” Despite what everyone else says, Willa knows this is “terrible, terrible news!” She already has to cope with the upcoming move to middle school, and now this. Willa’s family is comfortably off, and she has solid support in her corner from professionals, family, and friends. Mackler describes the way Willa experiences the world so that readers intimately perceive how it feels in her body. Refreshingly, the adult characters treat the children as mature, capable people, including them in decisions. There are also ringing truths to life as a kid of divorced parents that lay no blame and connect emotionally. The story focuses on working through tough changes, even when it is hard.
A quality, truthful portrayal of the general challenges that come with different experiences of the world, whether personal or familial. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-70948-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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