Except for her beloved Uncle Florence Italy Figg, a 4'6" mail order book dealer who with his niece forms the Figg-Newton monster (a stunt that enables them to reach the rare and unusual books on Ebenezer Bargain's top shelf), Mona Lisa Newton has no use for her kooky relatives. All former performers except for Mona's mother (Sis) who makes up for it by tap-tappity-tap-tapping around the house, the Figgs are without doubt an unusual family, well deserving both the scorn and the attention their fellow citizens of Pineapple express in italicized inserts. Take their ritual of Caprification, based on an ancestor's vision of heaven. As "each one must find his own Capri," Romulus Figg intends to look under the Niagara Falls but his twin Remus thinks Capri is not a place at all but lies in numbers, and Truman Figg the human pretzel expects to get there as soon as he can twist his body into a Moebius band ("I've got it just about worked out except for one elbow"). But Uncle Flo insists that the answer is in books (Read, Mona, read!), and it is indeed through a book, Las Hazanas Fantasticas by one Pirata Supuesto, that he finds his Capri — for Uncle Flo dies, leaving Mona bereft and more withdrawn now than ever. It is not until she follows him to the imaginary island of Caprichos ("floating through swirling nothingness") that Mona realizes that she has "a lot of remembering to do, a lot of living and learning and loving to do" — and is somehow able to return, to life, aided no doubt by the unique bedside encouragements (Sis' tap dancing, Truman's contortions, Remus' fractions, cousin Fido's guilty sympathy) of her frantic relations. As must be evident this is even crazier than Raskin's Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (KR, 1971), but the zaniness here seems more often forced than inspired, and though the answer to the puzzle is made clear when the time comes, the question remains elusive. Still a juvenile novel — however unstrung — that takes such farcical liberties with death, grief and readers' expectations is rare enough to rate a hearing, and the Figgs — all mask and gesture though they are — do come up with a few show-stopping lines.
Pub Date: April 1, 1974
ISBN: 0142411698
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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