All in all, this is more like a muted manifesto than anything else, but Fitzhugh's approach to family dynamics is certainly...
If Paula Fox as a white author was criticized for writing of black experience in The Slave Dancer, even though her hero was white, Fitzhugh makes herself even more vulnerable by telling a black family's story from the viewpoints of the two children—Emma (short for Emancipation), about eleven, and Willie, seven.
What's more, the Sheridan parents are far closer to stereotype than were those Fitzhugh created for Harriet the Spy—the Walshes were true to their class, but didn't seem invented to represent it. Here, the father, born and orphaned in the slums, is now a successful lawyer (white maid, East End Avenue apartment) to whom Willie's passion for dancing represents a return to the days when singing and dancing and running around on a stage making a fool of himself were all the honkies let a black man do. Mr. Sheridan is also a male chauvinist, threatened by his bright daughter's interest in law, and his wife is a sympathetic but spinelessly subservient helpmate. But when the characters seem sociological types, the improbabilities become more impeding, and surely a seven-year-old's fixation on career plans (dancing on Broadway or otherwise) and, less importantly, a contemporary kid's devotion to soft-shoe era turns, are hard to credit. However questionable the premise, the Sheridans do fill out a bit as their story becomes one of generation conflict and children's rights, and Emma in particular, faced with the crushing awareness of her mother's weakness and what she perceives (not unrealistically) as her father's hatred, proves a sturdy, uncompromising fighter for Willie's self-determination and her own integrity. Disillusioned by an underground children's Army forming in the city, she organizes a small group of classmates as the nucleus of a sort of consciousness-raising movement. . .for, "as nobody's family is going to change, then we have to change."
All in all, this is more like a muted manifesto than anything else, but Fitzhugh's approach to family dynamics is certainly child centered, and Emma's observant sketches of her parents' and her peers' behavior, along with her own abrasive contributions to the agitation, provide some flashes of life and recognition.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1974
ISBN: 978-0-312-53577-3
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974
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
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
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