Just out of junior high school, Joe and his friend Crowbar are hired by Joe's uncle (Joe lives with him in a trailer) to run a dead man's ashes down a dangerous stretch of the Colorado River, traveling by night to avoid Park Service patrols, and to dump the urn of ashes overboard at Lava Falls. (Crowbar is of American Indian ancestry and Joe an undifferentiated white, and George makes a point of the boys not making a point of it.) But in the dumping process the boys' inflatable raft is wrecked, and after a wild ride down the falls they start climbing the cliff walls with an idea of heading for the Havasupai village they know to be somewhere about. A younger, speechless "Wild Boy" they run into shows them the way to food and water in return for Joe's show of affection; Joe and Crowbar hope the boy can show them to the village once Joe teaches him enough words, but there are setbacks due to Crowbar's impatient attempts to make a slave of the kid. After the three have lived for a while in a mini-village of their own, the wild boy does lead the others to the Supai, where he will stay with the village teacher and complete the civilizing process he is now eager to learn. Joe's uncle turns out to be a crook, indifferent to the boys' safety and concerned only with the urn—which, unsurprisingly, contained money and not dead Roland after all. George does better with the survival story and the feral child than with the dumb scheme that sets the trip in motion, but the relationships among the three boys conforms too patly to the author's own scheme, and this has none of the moving qualities of My Side of the Mountain or Julie of the Wolves.
Pub Date: April 17, 1979
ISBN: 0590321188
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1979
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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