Sad and satisfying in just the right amounts.
Determined to give their hospitalized teacher a worthy "last day," three sixth-grade boys skip school and persevere on an impossible quest, deepening their friendship and discovering inner courage they didn’t know they had.
Ms. Bixby was one of the “Good Ones”—the kind of teacher you pay attention to and who pays attention to you. For each of the three narrators in this moving story, she meant something special. Topher, Steve, and Brand feel unappreciated at home: white artist Topher’s parents are busy working; Japanese-American Steve feels inferior to his perfect sister, who meets his father’s high standards; and white Brand has shouldered adult responsibilities because his paraplegic father is too depressed to do household tasks. Alternating chapters chronicle their efforts to acquire an expensive cheesecake, a bottle of wine, and a large bag of french fries for a celebratory picnic in the park across the street from the hospital where Ms. Bixby, who recognized their strengths, is being treated for pancreatic cancer. Not surprisingly, their mission is not entirely successful, but, like Atticus Finch, they see it through. Anderson’s dialogue is realistic, and his choice of first-person narration gradually reveals each boy’s history and personal growth. His characters are believable 12-year-old boys. The urban setting is appropriately diverse and gritty, and humor and pathos are nicely balanced.
Sad and satisfying in just the right amounts. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-233817-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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