Eleven-year-old Bindi copes with her parents’ separation and an unsettling move, supported by a gently colorful cast of characters. When Dad disappears to job-hunt far away, Bindi barely notices—until she learns that her parents have actually separated. Mom needs a job, and Aunt Darnell’s always dreamed of a restaurant, so The Dancing Pancake is born, open for breakfast and lunch only. Bindi and Mom move into the apartment upstairs. The diner’s populated by relatives (mother, good-natured aunt and uncle, energetic four-year-old cousin), a friendly teenage waitress and a wise, idealized homeless woman. Bindi’s free-verse narration makes for smooth, simple reading; Lew-Vriethoff’s line drawings add spirit. Bindi’s believable emotional aches exist in a fairly innocent world—where a six-year-old can roam a zoo alone, the most angry 11-year-olds might do “everything / from kicking pumpkins / to screaming ‘Banana poop!’ / in the principal’s office” and God and Sunday School teach Bindi an altruism that lessens her own melancholy. Choose readers who’ll enjoy, rather than envy, Bindi’s parents’ reunion at the end. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 11, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-85870-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
© Copyright 2025 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.
