Skip.
A one-sided, yearslong pranking feud is about to blow up.
Fifth-grade graduate Chadwick Musselman is thrilled that his nemesis, Terry Vance, who has been torturing him with pranks for years, has flunked. Chadwick has the whole summer to work on his “lurking and creeping” campaign to get into the clique of cute Jana Sedgewick “of the glorious red hair” (or at least in a clique that overlaps hers). But his success is limited, and when sixth grade starts it turns out Terry didn’t flunk after all. And because Terry seems to have caused the previous principal to run away, everyone must now attend special classes called “group” to “improve communication,” which Terry uses as an opportunity to gaslight Chadwick. Chadwick enlists the help of his snack-obsessed best friend, Rory, and uber-smart Suvi to combat Terry’s campaign and wage one of his own. Who will win…will anyone? Doan attempts funny but mostly achieves unpleasant with her middle-grade comedy of vengeance. The bad girls (really, all girls except the cartoonishly pedantic Suvi) are vacuous. But the book’s main failing is a complete lack of connection with reality. At the close, it even undercuts its own message that an eye for an eye is a bad idea. Chadwick and Terry seem to be white; the stereotypically brilliant Suvi is an Indian immigrant; and Rory is depicted as black in Andrewson’s illustrations.
Skip. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-15409-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
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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