I loved Hound Dog Man and felt it never got the audience it deserved. Now comes Fred Gipson's second book, with fewer ingredients of sure popularity (or so I felt- in the dog and boy theme of the first book), but again with that contagious love of the outdoors. He has told this time the story of a country-bred man- a Texan — who stakes everything he has in buying back the old home place, and bringing his motherless boys and homesick old grandfather away from the city where he's never felt he belonged. The house is a ramshackle shell; the furnishing sparse and inadequate; the fields eroded and crop-worn; and nature refuses to cooperate. But he's home again, is Sam Crockett, and the old man's tales grow increasingly picturesque as nostalgia for the days of his youth battles the restrictions of modern fenced-in ranches which curb his hunting and fishing. To city-bred boys there are overwhelming problems of adjustment, particularly to sensitive, frightened Steve. But the family bond was strong, and there was a depth of understanding and sympathy that bridged all gaps — even the seemingly insuperable economic one, while Sam fought through to a measure of success. Throughout, there is a tenuous thread of romance — a bitter story of a battle with a chiselling neighbor — and the intense all-pervading sense of the pull of the country itself. The old grandfather is a grass-roots figure, a humorous, almost folklore character. And how Fred Gipson can write! There isn't the legend in the making quality the other book had- nor the sentimental appeal. But it has a warm humanity and much of poetry too.
Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1950
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1950
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
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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