A powerful paean to human connection with a dash of magic.
New friends help each other find their missing loved ones.
After an embarrassing incident at the pool, Roxie Darling is dreading sixth grade. Granny, who’s a folk singer, offered to take her on tour, suggesting she do virtual school, but then Granny seemingly took off without her, leaving Roxie devastated. Meanwhile, Grayson Patch, who uses a walker because of her brittle bones, is perfectly happy to have a new foster home for the two days until her beloved sister, Beanie, turns 18 and can become her guardian. But Beanie doesn’t pick her up as planned and stops responding to messages. Assisted by the rest of their self-declared group of misfits in Club Yeehaw, the girls team up to find the missing “heart person” they each long for, even as a local meteorological phenomenon known as the Witching Wind comes howling down from the hills. Roxie and Grayson, who are cued white, burst to exuberant life in this warmhearted story. The members of the racially diverse supporting cast at times feel too idealized to be real, relatable people. Fans of fabulism will embrace the wild winds and the town legends about their origin, while realistic fiction devotees will appreciate the naturally developing friendships, strong family bonds, and straightforward portrayals of bullying, foster care, dementia, and rural life.
A powerful paean to human connection with a dash of magic. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781338858600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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