An excellent translation of a contemporary European classic.
A young girl uncovers startling secrets.
Astrid has long enjoyed being the only child in the small Norwegian village of Glimmerdal. The energetic 10-year-old spends her days skiing along the hillside and sledding through town, bringing laughter wherever she goes. Astrid’s got lovely parents and an adoring godfather, Gunnvald, and doesn’t want a single thing to change. Of course change does come, first in the form of a new family with children moving to Glimmerdal, and then a mysterious woman whom everyone else in town seems to know already. Astrid, resourceful as ever, digs for answers. Readers looking for a warm and cozy tale to bundle up with on the couch during the winter months will find plenty to enjoy here. Parr’s original Norwegian text, published in 2009, has been compared to Heidi and Pippi Longstocking, and Puzey’s translation effortlessly conveys that sense for American readers. The warm tone and endearing characters do most of the heavy lifting here: Parr’s narrative is structured loosely and paced leisurely. Some younger readers accustomed to the snappy rhythms of American middle-grade fiction may feel an itch here and there for a quicker pace, but for those inclined to hang out with Astrid and Gunnvald—and this includes adults in the mood for a cheery change of pace—the rewards are plentiful. Glimmerdal’s population is evidently all white.
An excellent translation of a contemporary European classic. (Fiction. 8-12, adult)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0017-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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