Bound to whet appetites.
A droll tween take on The Picture of Dorian Gray.
For more than five centuries, the superficially polite Ebenezer Tweezer has resided in an enormous house teeming with riches provided by an attic-dwelling beast. Their arrangement is simple: Ebenezer feeds the beast whatever it requests, and the beast vomits forth anything Ebenezer desires. What began with roast beef sandwiches soon gave way to more…unconventional fare, and the beast has vowed to withhold Ebenezer’s 512th birthday present—an annual anti-aging potion—until it’s served a human child. Following a few false starts, Ebenezer visits the contemptible Miss Fizzlewick’s orphanage and adds Bethany, a churlish girl whose parents perished in a fire, to the beast’s menu. Bethany’s surly, sarcastic antics immediately make Ebenezer’s life less than pleasurable, but the beast refuses to sup upon a scrawny child. Straightforward, third-person narration from Ebenezer’s perspective neither preaches nor condescends, and a tight focus on titular characters makes pages fly by. As Ebenezer grows decrepit and battles a will demented as his own, he finds himself growing involuntarily fond of the girl he’s fattening. Can this unlikely tandem outwit a truly inhuman monster? Meggitt-Phillips’ ability to make readers squeal with delight, squirm in discomfort, and squawk with laughter make classical comparisons inevitable. Though wildly imaginative, the book is also ethnically homogenous, as nearly all characters are coded White.
Bound to whet appetites. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7889-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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