A wry, uneven story in which a junior-high-schooler has his fling with the "in" crowd but ultimately finds more rewarding friends. David stands by uneasily while Roger and two other popular classmates knock down old Mrs. Bayfield, break her window, and steal her cane. When he himself is plagued by similar mishaps, he wonders whether he has been cursed—especially after learning that Mrs. Bayfield is reputed to be a witch who steals faces. Sachar gives David more than his share of grief: a constant victim of japes and jeers, he hangs around with outcasts Larry and Mo (Maureen); having nerved himself to ask out friendly Tori, he stands in front of her and loses his pants. Then, desperate to retrieve the cane and end the curse, he challenges Roger; battered but unbowed, he gets the cane, marches it back to Mrs. Bayfield, and learns that she's Tori's aunt and also a well-known artist who makes life masks (thus the witch rumor). Like There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom (1987), this features plenty of wildly tunny moments and deftly depicted social interaction; but once again Sachar keeps underestimating readers, halting the action to explain points he wants to make. Meanwhile, the final scenes, including a bibliotherapeutic epilogue set 150 years hence, are contrived and awkwardly handled.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1989
ISBN: 0679886222
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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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