A helpful story about a young anxiety sufferer navigating the unexpected.
Journal entries addressed to her dog, Cosmo, continue to help Penny navigate life’s more difficult situations.
Though things have been going OK for a while, Penny knows she needs to start writing letters to her dog again when her classmate Luke’s folded-paper fortuneteller predicts “unexpected surprises” are coming her way. The first surprise turns out to be that everyone will be required to participate in the fifth grade class play. As if that isn’t enough, next her parents suddenly announce they’re moving to a new house. This second series entry further explores Penny’s changing friendship with ex-bestie Violet. She also attempts to forge a friendship between two people she likes very much who unfortunately dislike each other. Navigating these uncomfortable changes and social situations requires Penny to step outside her comfort zone and lean on her coping mechanisms to deal with her anxiety. Discussions with her Feelings Teacher offer more useful strategies for young people with anxiety. Although Penny’s new friend group is supportive, readers will squirm with vicarious embarrassment from some of the situations she finds herself in. Parts of the narrative would have benefited from tightening, but many readers will feel seen and validated. The interspersed comics are a highlight, carrying surprising emotional weight and humor given their simplicity. Penny and her family read white.
A helpful story about a young anxiety sufferer navigating the unexpected. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780593616802
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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 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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