Smoothly written but with a one-note protagonist and not much action.
A 12-year-old French-Canadian girl learns to feel differently about her family’s economic status.
Aline Sauriol is ashamed that she can’t bring in pennies when the nuns at school are collecting for the poor. She’s ashamed of the house she lives in, in one of the poorer areas of Ottawa, and is embarrassed that, in 1942, her father takes her to school in a horse-drawn conveyance instead of a motorcar. When her family rents out their upstairs to a family from London, she resents their wealth, their ease with English, their Protestantism. She’s nasty to the one girl at school who seems worse off than herself, and she steals money from her mother and spends it on candy. Eventually Aline learns that others are not always as well off as they seem, and she comes to appreciate her family’s love and security. Unfortunately, there is a mismatch between Aline and her audience. Her understanding of the world, her emotional responses, and her ultimate growth all seem to belong to a much younger girl, as if she were 8 instead of 12. As it is, she’s barely likable. The wartime setting never feels important to the story or especially realistic. The story adheres to a white default, without mention of First Nations people or other racial minorities, although the portrayal of a French-Canadian family is a rare event in itself.
Smoothly written but with a one-note protagonist and not much action. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77260-068-1
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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