Author Lesko and illustrator Winsor (Super Lexi, 2014) bring their winning heroine back for a sequel in which she expresses her grumpy—but understandable—attitude about Christmas.
Second-grader Lexi is not a fan of “hoopla”: “It’s loud like an explosion. Also, it’s full of surprises. I have a phobia of those things.” So when she finds out that there will be a class Christmas party, complete with a mystery-present exchange, she begins plotting ways to get out of it. Lexi has an unnamed social disorder that makes her react differently to things, such as parties, that the rest of her peers enjoy. She gets very uncomfortable, for example, if she breaks rules or lies, so she studiously avoids those behaviors, and she sometimes has trouble finding the right words. She becomes convinced that, in order to avoid the party, she’ll have to get on Santa’s naughty list. She’s even willing to risk the “feeling of barf” she gets by being naughty if it gets her out of “hoopla.” In this second series installment, Lexi has a best friend, Kaylee, who helps her think about how her words and actions affect other people; for example, when her humbug attitude destroys Kaylee’s feeling of Christmas magic, Lexi immediately reins in her behavior to keep her friend happy. In return, Kaylee offers Lexi understanding, accepting her quirks without comment: “I am a fan of the way Kaylee always says ‘OK,’ ” Lexi says. “She doesn’t say stuff like ‘Everybody likes Christmas hoopla, Lexi!’ like other people.” When Lexi realizes that her naughty-list plan might ruin her friend’s holiday, she must come to terms with how her behavior affects not only herself, but her whole class. Lexi is just as delightful a narrator in this sequel as she was in the first book, and her new friendship with Kaylee is well-developed. Lexi’s parents’ understanding of her needs has also grown since the first volume, and the book exhibits their beautifully positive parent-child relationship. Although Lexi eventually finds something to like about Christmas, Lesko never undermines her struggles by offering an easy fix. Middle-grade readers, whether or not they have neurodevelopmental disorders, will root for Lexi and look forward to future adventures.
Hurrah (but no “hoopla”) for the return of Super Lexi!
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991431014
Page Count: 102
Publisher: Red Leather Books, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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