The at times lyrical writing cannot compensate for the flawed history.
A sadly flawed premise undermines Long’s debut novel, early chapters of which won the Katherine Paterson prize.
On his 13th birthday, Clemson joins his father in the depths of their small Missouri town’s lead mine. Clem hates mining, but his grandfather’s disability due to “miner’s consumption” and doctor bills from his sister’s epilepsy mean his family needs the money he’ll earn. Despite the manifest need, every day he hopes his Pap will release him, just as every week Grampy writes to the mining company in hopes of “compensation.” The writing is at times lovely, and it charts Clem’s emotional state with precision. His relationship with Esther and friendship with a bootlegger’s daughter are particularly touching. Unfortunately, that clarity does not extend to the actual mining, which, though Clem clearly hates it, is never made real for readers. He descends with a shovel; he “mucks” for ore; he ascends. More seriously, Long’s story is anachronistic in both directions: The characters have 21st-century sensibilities, even as Clem seems to live by 19th-century rules. Unlike in the 1800s, in 1924, when the story begins, Missouri state law prohibited mines from employing anyone under age 16. And as there is evidently no union nor any clear precedent, Grampy’s expectation of compensation for his lung disease seems highly unlikely.
The at times lyrical writing cannot compensate for the flawed history. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2839-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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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