Although amusing, this story never quite reaches the level of funny, but it’s well-meaning and enjoyable.
A not-so-lightweight tale rises above drag jokes to reveal surprising profundity.
At first bite, this lightly humorous novel about two sixth-grade boys infiltrating the Cupcake Cadets (think Girl Scouts) to win a $500 prize seems to be going for cringe comedy, heavy on the gag aspects of boys wearing girls’ clothing. But once the guys actually join the troop and discover that they can pass, the story becomes a richer, more layered confection. Jeremy Bender loves boats and dreams of piloting his father’s beloved Chris-Craft. But when he and his best friend, Slater Stevenson, accidentally ruin the engine, Jeremy has to come up with big bucks to fix it. That’s when he gets his big, albeit crazy idea—join the Cupcake Cadets and win their Windjammer Whirl, a model sailboat race. It’s a hubris-filled plan with multiple pitfalls, and Jeremy and Slater fall into every one. Life lessons are learned, as the disasters prompt not only a renewed determination in our heroes, but also better planning and forethought, which are largely seen as female virtues. A subplot about a school bully who just happens to be the troop leader’s son adds flavor, as does a determined, hardworking Cadet’s discovery of their not-so-little secret.
Although amusing, this story never quite reaches the level of funny, but it’s well-meaning and enjoyable. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-201512-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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