Much inferior to The Perfect Play (2004), Wener’s first and more mature novel to appear in the US before this fledgling...
A lame, long-winded tale from Wener, a former lead singer with the Brit pop band Sleeper.
“Why is my girlfriend so fed up with me that she feels the need to go and live in a whole other country?” whines narrator Danny McQueen, whose mother was such a Steve McQueen fanatic that she married a man named McQueen. (Because you’re a boring lout, readers who’ve persevered through the novel’s first third to get to this point will reply.) After five years, marketing consultant Alison is fed up with 29 year-old Danny’s rock-star fantasies. He and two mates, one of whom gives him a black eye for being a “self-absorbed, moaning little git,” play for beer at friends’ parties. He gets up at midday, eats his breakfast in front of Supermarket Sweep, and drinks all of Alison’s Bacardi Breezes before she gets home from the office. He should shape up and get a job, says Alison, who’s accepted a six-month reassignment from London to Bruges. Danny tells the band they have to get a recording contract or hang it up. He tracks down an obnoxious high-school buddy who is now the lead singer in a hot band called Scarface and bluffs his way into a contract to back them up on a tour. It’s a vanity deal—his band has to pay $1,000 for the lowly 8–8:30 p.m. time slot—but it’s a gig. By the end of the tour, a reviewer has called them “the next big thing,” and the three have dipped into the life of champagne, cocaine, and groupies. A record deal may be in the works, but that doesn’t make Danny’s life with Alison any easier. Unfortunately, he’s such a flat character it’s hard to care what happens to him.
Much inferior to The Perfect Play (2004), Wener’s first and more mature novel to appear in the US before this fledgling effort, which needn’t have made the flight across the Atlantic.Pub Date: March 21, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-072563-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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