A readable but essentially inconsequential addition to Clements’ oeuvre.
Clements draws on his memory of classroom fads for this newest exploration of sixth-grade politics.
Grace likes to collect things. When her grandfather takes her around the old New England mill he’s bought, she decides to add the dozens of boxes of buttons she finds there to her already-cluttered room. “I have a theory about why I collect so many things,” Grace adds intriguingly, but this motivation is never satisfyingly revealed. Described as “pretty,” she prefers scientific observation to trips to the mall and is slowly realizing the ways that her best friend, Ellie, who’s also “pretty,” makes her feel inadequate and unsupported. When Grace brings a handful of buttons to school as part of a social studies unit on the Industrial Revolution, other kids become inexplicably fascinated by them, and soon their school is overcome by a button craze reminiscent of the 17th-century Dutch tulip bubble or, more recently, Pogs. As trading and hoarding reach a fever pitch, Grace tries to navigate the destruction of one friendship, the start of another, and her own place in the middle school hierarchy. The button craze keeps the story tripping along, but somewhat broad characterizations and relatively low stakes—not to mention a perfectly neat ending—do not. Grace goes to an Illinois school where no one is identified racially, but all faces on the cover present white.
A readable but essentially inconsequential addition to Clements’ oeuvre. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-55759-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
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
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded.
Tiny, sassy Bob the dog, friend of The One and Only Ivan(2012), returns to tell his tale.
Wisecracking Bob, who is a little bit Chihuahua among other things, now lives with his girl, Julia, and her parents. Happily, her father works at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary, the zoo where Bob’s two best friends, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant, live, so Bob gets to visit and catch up with them regularly. Due to an early betrayal, Bob doesn’t trust humans (most humans are good only for their thumbs); he fears he’s going soft living with Julia, and he’s certain he is a Bad Dog—as in “not a good representative of my species.” On a visit to the zoo with a storm threatening, Bob accidentally falls into the gorilla enclosure just as a tornado strikes. So that’s what it’s like to fly. In the storm’s aftermath, Bob proves to everyone (and finally himself) that there is a big heart in that tiny chest…and a brave one too. With this companion, Applegate picks up where her Newbery Medal winner left off, and fans will be overjoyed to ride along in the head of lovable, self-deprecating Bob on his storm-tossed adventure. His wry doggy observations and attitude are pitch perfect (augmented by the canine glossary and Castelao’s picture dictionary of dog postures found in the frontmatter). Gorilla Ivan described Julia as having straight, black hair in the previous title, and Castelao's illustrations in that volume showed her as pale-skinned. (Finished art not available for review.)
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded. (afterword) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299131-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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