Seymour’s tale is mainly for people who are really sick of more conventional hero’s-journey narratives.
In many novels the main character overcomes great obstacles to achieve what he or she wants in the world. But Seymour doesn’t want to do anything.
Seymour avoids the subway, swimming, going outside, and—most of all—learning to ride a bike. He’s afraid of so many things that the book becomes a sort of anti-story in which the main obstacle is Seymour. His Israeli cousin Pesach, by contrast, is outgoing and gregarious, and on his visit to Seymour’s family he instantly wants to see Grand Central Station and to help people he’s just met repair their bicycle. Readers might expect Seymour to rise to the challenge and maybe even talk to his neighbor “the beautiful, perfect Lari,” and occasionally he does, but he’s a master at finding a beautiful, perfect excuse not to, like the appearance of the “biggest, hairiest” dog he’s ever seen, which triggers a sneezing fit. This might be entertaining if the excuses were funny, but Seymour’s best joke is a fantasy that Lari has parents named Shari and Harry. (She does have a sister named Bari.) Both are extremely blonde and blue-eyed. The races of the characters aren’t always identified, but many, like Seymour and his family, are Jewish, and the text does frequently note the diversity of New York crowds. When Seymour finally overcomes his fear, in the closing chapters, it’s very satisfying, but it’s an awfully long wait. Singh’s spot art decorates the text.
Seymour’s tale is mainly for people who are really sick of more conventional hero’s-journey narratives. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-3951-8
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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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