Small dimensions and an appealing jacket depicting four kids in a treehouse bespeak a popular series book (and this is the first of four); readers drawn by these features won't be disappointed in this accessible story of a family moving from Australia, where they've always lived, to their rolling stone of a father's New Zealand birthplace. Dad's large extended family greets them with a party, during which ten-year-old Pete's newly met same-age cousins—led by Tracey, known as a "bad case"- -devise a scary initiation: he's to spend the night in the family graveyard. With some trepidation, Pete not only meets the challenge but is enriched by it ("Looking up...from between the tombstones, he had taken infinity by surprise. Now it made new, enormous, unending sense...this time he felt [the stars] had altered him forever")—just one of the Mahy touches that make this story special. Their older cousins give the perpetrators a taste of the fright they've tried to inflict, then good-humoredly get everyone inside without loss of face or retribution. Each deftly sketched character (and there are enough so that the genealogy provided is welcome) has the aura of a fully realized personality; they're the kind of new friends who grow ever more interesting—a boisterous, good-natured clan with traditional family songs and a delightful habit of making up new rhymes on the spot. A swell introduction to Mahy. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-31015-3
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers...
From the author of the Animorphs series comes this earnest novel in verse about an orphaned Sudanese war refugee with a passion for cows, who has resettled in Minnesota with relatives.
Arriving in winter, Kek spots a cow that reminds him of his father’s herd, a familiar sight in an alien world. Later he returns with Hannah, a friendly foster child, and talks the cow’s owner into hiring him to look after it. When the owner plans to sell the cow, Kek becomes despondent. Full of wide-eyed amazement and unalloyed enthusiasm for all things American, Kek is a generic—bordering on insulting—stereotype. His tribe, culture and language are never identified; personal details, such as appearance and age, are vague or omitted. Lacking the quirks and foibles that bring characters to life, Kek seems more a composite of traits designed to instruct readers than an engaging individual in his own right.
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers interested in the plight of war refugees. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-36765-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
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