This spinoff is heavy on the poop jokes and light on almost everything else—readers expecting a boy Dork Diaries with equal...
This is Max Crumbly's first experience in public school, and so far he's vomited on bully Doug "Thug" Thurston, forfeited a race due to his insistent bladder, and been locked in his locker—but it's still better than home-schooling with Grandma.
Humiliation's a bummer, but cute Erin Madison seems friendly, so the asthmatic, white eighth-grader perseveres. Max laboriously introduces his quirks (chiefly a preoccupation with bathroom functions, but he also likes comic books and rap), his supporting cast, and plot elements in an illustrated "journal" that's marked by many exclamation points and cross-outs. The latter can be baffling; readers will understand why Max seeks to conceal his crush on Erin from his putative audience (and himself), but why redact "I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and POOP better lyrics!"? Pacing is uneven: the action doesn't really get underway till about the two-thirds mark, when Thug locks Max up again, this time for a long weekend, and the would-be superhero discovers three inept burglars as he tries to escape—and then the story ends on a cliffhanger. Even given its conscious nod to comic books, the plotting is implausible and the prose often painfully artless ("That's when I excitedly came up with a brilliant plan!"), making its eighth-grade authorship all too convincing.
This spinoff is heavy on the poop jokes and light on almost everything else—readers expecting a boy Dork Diaries with equal nuance may be surprised . (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6001-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 warm bundle of holiday cheer.
In a funny, feel-good tale, 12-year-old twins separated at birth meet by chance and try to pull off a family switch during the December holidays.
The girls, who are cued white, agree that it would be a delicious prank, but each has a personal motive, too: Aviva Davis, who was adopted by a culturally Jewish mom and a Black dad who was raised Christian, wonders what it’s like to celebrate Christmas. Budding author Holly Martin, who was adopted by a white-presenting single mom, sees a golden opportunity to gather experiences for a school writing assignment about facing her fears. In a plot as sweet as a Hanukkah jelly doughnut and twisty as a Christmas cinnamon roll, the pair just manages to bail one another out of a string of sticky situations—both hilarious and otherwise. They both learn something of the customs and meaning of the two holidays while working through tears and laughter—not to mention conflicts sparked by their very different personalities. Everything culminates in a holiday performance at a local senior center that will have readers rising up to cheer them on. Though their history remains tantalizingly mysterious, for the protagonists, who narrate alternating chapters, it’s mission accomplished and more: Aviva emerges feeling more secure in her Jewish identity, while anxious Holly discovers unexpected depths of courage.
A warm bundle of holiday cheer. (song lyrics) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250360670
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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