A tale of intergenerational bonding that may resonate with adult readers but will leave youngsters cold.
In the Newbery-winning author’s latest, a girl grapples with a beloved elder’s dementia.
Eleven-year-old Sophia (who goes by Sophie) Henry Winslow’s best friend is Sophie Gershowitz, her 88-year-old neighbor. Sophie Gershowitz’s adult son is concerned with her cognitive decline and thinks it may be time for her to move to an assisted living facility. The younger Sophie decides to prepare her friend for the cognitive tests so she’ll pass them and be able to stay. When Sophie Gershowitz struggles to recall three words—tree, table, book—Sophie Winslow invites her to recall related childhood stories in the hopes that it will help. Sophie Gershowitz shares slice-of-life tales from her girlhood in Poland before revealing how everything changed when World War II began. Sophie Winslow reflects: “I had never really got it, never understood history, how things fit together, because I needed someone to tell me the stories…of how things are lost, and what that means and how it hurts.” While the explanation of historical events is age-appropriate and at times compelling, the book feels more geared toward an adult sensibility than a child’s. The pacing is slow, and young Sophie’s storyline seems like an overly padded, self-conscious framing device. The protagonist is a quirk-filled bundle of idiosyncrasies; Lowry aims for precocious but sometimes stumbles into pretentious and judgmental, particularly with young Sophie’s attitudes toward her friend Ralphie’s love of junk food. Physical descriptions of characters are minimal.
A tale of intergenerational bonding that may resonate with adult readers but will leave youngsters cold. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780063299504
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways.
Devotion permeates this tale of a small dog who’s swept up in a peasants’ revolt against a greedy king.
Inflamed with righteousness in the wake of yet another tax hike, 12-year-old Tom has defied his parents to slip away and join the revolutionary Reds. Stoutly declaring that he’s a good dog, 5-year-old Rebel chases after him to bring his beloved boy back—and discovers a wide new world beyond the farm, fraught with dangers but also rich in animal friends offering help and advice. Just as beguiling as the furry narrator’s dog’s-eye view of events are his ongoing arguments with Jaxon, a gruff feral hound he meets along the way, who urges him to find his wild inner True Dog. Jaxon’s refusal to be bound by emotional attachments ultimately clashes with Rebel’s big, uncomplicated heart. Following a brush with death, Rebel encounters a mystical Companion, who offers him glimpses of dog heaven; when the climactic battle arrives, Rebel declares, “I get to decide what I do with my one and only life. And if I use it for anything, I’m going to use it for love.” The author brings the odyssey to a satisfactory conclusion with one last, pure affirmation of love. In this story set in an alternate Britain reminiscent of its 17th-century Civil War, Rebel distinguishes humans in the cast by their voices, smell, and dress.
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781536246797
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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