A slowly unfurling delight.
A missing painting, a floating girl, and a mustachioed man: a lonely almost-12-year-old vows to figure it all out.
Middle school has been terrible for Rami Ahmed, and now a painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, where his mother works as the cleaning crew supervisor. Only the cleaning crew, Ed the security guard, and Rami himself were in the building on the day of the painting’s disappearance. As the theft draws unprecedented interest in the small, largely overlooked museum, the pressure of suspicion starts to grow. When a mysterious girl appears to Rami in the museum—and he recognizes her as the girl who’s portrayed in the stolen painting—he’s certain that she holds the key to its whereabouts. After Rami joins forces with Indian American classmate Veda, an aspiring sleuth, he finds himself in increasingly unexpected situations. The mystery drives this exquisitely paced story that unfolds in short chapters that readers will quickly consume. The characters, though, are the beating heart of this tender, quiet tale. From Rami, the only child of a now-single immigrant mother from Lebanon, to the museum director, who “had that accent that most rich people do…fancy and well educated,” to Agatha, the sun-seeking turtle from the garden by the Penelope who observes, learns, and wants to give joy—each character is drawn with texture, depth, and warmth. Rockefeller’s evocative illustrations enhance the text.
A slowly unfurling delight. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780062956705
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone.
A 7-year-old descends into the Land of the Lost in search of his beloved comfort object.
Jack has loved Dur Pig long enough to wear the beanbag toy into tattered shapelessness—which is why, when his angry older stepsister chucks it out the car window on Christmas Eve, he not only throws a titanic tantrum and viciously rejects the titular replacement pig, but resolves to sneak out to find DP. To his amazement, the Christmas Pig offers to guide him to the place where all lost Things go. Whiffs of childhood classics, assembled with admirable professionalism into a jolly adventure story that plays all the right chords, hang about this tale of loss and love. Along with family drama, Rowling stirs in fantasy, allegory, and generous measures of social and political commentary. Pursued by the Land’s cruel and monstrous Loser, Jack and the Christmas Pig pass through territories from the Wastes of the Unlamented, where booger-throwing Bad Habits roam, to the luxurious City of the Missed for encounters with Hope, Happiness, and Power (a choleric king who rejects a vote that doesn’t go his way). A joyful reunion on the Island of the Beloved turns poignant, but Christmas Eve being “a night for miracles and lost causes,” perhaps there’s still a chance (with a little help from Santa) for everything to come right? In both the narrative and Field’s accomplished, soft-focus illustrations, the cast presents White.
Plays to Rowling’s fan base; equally suited for gifting and reading aloud or alone. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-79023-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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