And—where the characters in the first book were memorable, larger-than-life caricatures—Sport's mother here is merely a...
You'll remember Harriet the Spy's friend Sport Rocque as the eleven-year-old who keeps house and account books for his impractical writer father.
This takes place before Sport turns twelve (presumably then still in the Sixties, though there's an anachronistic reference to the hustle), during the weeks that Sport starts in at a new junior high school, his father marries a super, sympathetic lady named Kate, and his mother's father dies, leaving most of his immense fortune to Sport. But as Sport's mother's share of the inheritance will double if she stays home from her European jaunts to raise him, she proceeds to kidnap her unwilling son, locking him up first in his grandfather's home and later in the Plaza Hotel, from which Sport escapes in a food cart propelled by his friend Chi-Chi who's a bellhop there. (How he got the job at his age isn't considered.) The fast-paced story has its share of funny scenes, and fans of Harriet will be interested in Sport's own story—but it's a vastly inferior one, with nothing more on its mind than Sport's escape from his witchlike mother.
And—where the characters in the first book were memorable, larger-than-life caricatures—Sport's mother here is merely a predictable and uninteresting stereotype; Kate is too perfect an answer to the Rocques' prayers; and Sport's three friends—one Jewish, one black, and one Hispanic—seem an unrealistic vestige of naive Sixties didacticism.Pub Date: May 30, 1979
ISBN: 978-0-440-41818-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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