Keith, who barely remembers when he last saw his parents smile, is determined to cheer them up, but his exaggerated efforts are as inappropriate as they are well intentioned: Mum and Dad are devastated to find their fish-and-chips shop painted with Tropical Mango Hi-Gloss (intended as a maximum contrast to London's fog), and automatically reject his proposals for a South Sea vacation—or a move to Australia's tropical coast. Their real troubles, they confide, are economic: competition is growing. Still they agree to a day (cold and windy, it turns out) at a nearby beach. While they're away, the shop burns, precipitating a move to Australia after all; and despite Keith's new friend's dire warnings about crocodiles, poisonous jellyfish, etc., they find warm weather, friendly neighbors, and a welcome upturn in their fortunes. The more serious realities in this engagingly lighthearted comedy play a larger role in a simultaneously published sequel (Worry Warts: 0-15-299666-4), which begins as a rerun of book one: Keith is painting his parents' jalopy a giddy patchwork in hopes of lifting their renewed depression; troubles have followed with a new resort that's stealing customers. Divorce is now threatened; and though Keith's escapades still entertain (he gets trapped in an opal mine; paints another building), the question of who is comforting whom, and by what loving, if misguided, subterfuges, is a thoughtful undercurrent that surfaces in a surprising but appropriate conclusion. Each book stands alone, but they're stronger and more interesting as an easily read, genuinely funny two-part novel, lively with offbeat incidents and repartee. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-15-254768-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.
Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80215-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
SEEN & HEARD
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