An unusual misstep for Graff.
A voice from beyond the grave has a familiar ring to it. The spirit world may be closer than you might think.
Graff tells the story of Caraway June “CJ” Ames and her life with itinerant medium Aunt Nic. More than just a psychic, Aunt Nic has grown a reputation for channeling spirits. CJ, 12, relishes Aunt Nic’s gift for one big reason—Aunt Nic can communicate with CJ’s dead mom. Now, on the cusp of setting up a reality TV show and making her career bigger than ever, Aunt Nic reveals that her sister’s spirit—CJ’s mom—has traveled to the Far Away, meaning she is beyond communicating with. That’s when CJ, with the help of always-nervous 16-year-old Jax Delgado, who’s recently joined Aunt Nic’s support team, launches her own adventure to lure her absent mother’s spirit closer to home. Graff (The Great Treehouse War, 2017, etc.) is known for her heartwarming blend of magic and reality. However, as CJ gets closer to the truth, this story feels mean—even cruel. And CJ’s reaction to the truth feels less like vindication than plain vindictiveness. Young readers may respond to the high drama of CJ’s emotional roller coaster, but the high-stakes climax and ultimate resolution turn this adventure into an uncomfortable road trip with people you kinda wish you’d never met.
An unusual misstep for Graff. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3859-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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
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