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BABCOCK

Name: BABCOCK
Author: Joe Cottonwood
ISBN: 0-590-22221-X

by Joe Cottonwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1996

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Cottonwood (Danny Ain't, 1992, etc.) returns to the deceptively quiet town of San Puerco, California, for this filling tale of an overweight seventh grader, young love, family, baseball, and rock-'n'-roll. Babcock meets Kirsten by the lake where he's communing with dragonflies and feeding the ducks out of his briefcase and she's turning handsprings. He writes songs for his garage band; she writes poetry. He's black and hefty; she's white and thin. Meanwhile, Babcock's Uncle Earl roars in for an extended stay, taking over the band's garage, falling head over heels for Rosemary Rule, Babcock's take-no-prisoners teacher, and organizing a hopeless Little League team. Clear-eyed, self-possessed, and big-hearted, Babcock makes an appealing narrator, wise for his years but not unbelievably so, and an equal match for the obstacles before him. Cottonwood takes readers on an eventful ride, from high hilarity when Babcock's large caged menagerie—including Martin Luther the kingsnake, a barking giant salamander named Malcolm, the mice Frederick and Douglass—escapes, to the double shock of learning that Earl has wagered a loan on the wrong Little League team, and finding him shortly thereafter dead of a heart attack. Whether their choices are good or bad, the characters get the benefit of the doubt and the gift of being able to grow and change; it's not all empty calories. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-590-22221-X

Page Count: 316

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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A YEAR DOWN YONDER

From the Grandma Dowdel series , Vol. 2

by Richard Peck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2000

Year-round fun.

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Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”

This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”

Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000

ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE BEST MAN
by Richard Peck

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THE MOUSE WITH THE QUESTION MARK TAIL
by Richard Peck ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy

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SECRETS AT SEA
by Richard Peck illustrated by Kelly Murphy

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JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY

From the Joey Pigza series , Vol. 1

by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1998

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If Rotten Ralph were a boy instead of a cat, he might be Joey, the hyperactive hero of Gantos's new book, except that Joey is never bad on purpose. In the first-person narration, it quickly becomes clear that he can't help himself; he's so wound up that he not only practically bounces off walls, he literally swallows his house key (which he wears on a string around his neck and which he pull back up, complete with souvenirs of the food he just ate). Gantos's straightforward view of what it's like to be Joey is so honest it hurts. Joey has been abandoned by his alcoholic father and, for a time, by his mother (who also drinks); his grandmother, just as hyperactive as he is, abuses Joey while he's in her care. One mishap after another leads Joey first from his regular classroom to special education classes and then to a special education school. With medication, counseling, and positive reinforcement, Joey calms down. Despite a lighthearted title and jacket painting, the story is simultaneously comic and horrific; Gantos takes readers right inside a human whirlwind where the ride is bumpy and often frightening, especially for Joey. But a river of compassion for the characters runs through the pages, not only for Joey but for his overextended mom and his usually patient, always worried (if only for their safety) teachers. Mature readers will find this harsh tale softened by unusual empathy and leavened by genuinely funny events. (Fiction. 11-13)