Cinderella Smith cannot keep track of her shoes. It doesn’t seem to matter the type or the brand—she is always searching for missing footwear. The new school year has meant another loss too. Former pals Rosemary W. and Rosemary T. have become such close friends that they have squeezed Cinderella out of their tight friendship. The Rosemarys took summer dance class together, got their ears pierced, discovered boys and cell phones and are on their way to becoming the manipulative mean girls of their class. It looks like old friend and neighbor Charlie Prince might be Cinderella’s only buddy. Enter Erin, the new confident girl in the class. She needs Cinderella’s help figuring out her new stepfamily, and she instantly and correctly sizes up the Rosemarys. Together, these new friends figure out the mystery of stepsisters, missing shoes and the joys of tap dancing. Cinderella has a penchant for acting without thinking, causing her mother to arch her eyebrow in disappointment and judgment. Endearingly, though, Cinderella always tries to do the right thing. Though the first-person narration sounds a little too close to the voice of Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine, the richness of this new friendship and the gentle resolution will make readers hope for another installment. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: April 24, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-196423-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience.
When siblings Jessie and Evan (The Lemonade War, 2007, and The Lemonade Crime, 2011) accompany their mother on the time-honored midwinter holiday visit to their grandmother’s home in the mountains, the changes are alarming.
Fire damage to the house and Grandma’s inability to recognize Evan are as disquieting as the disappearance of the iron bell, hung long ago by their grandmother on Lowell Hill and traditionally rung at the New Year. Davies keeps a tight focus on the children: Points of view switch between Evan, with his empathetic and emotional approach to understanding his world, and Jessie, for whom routine is essential and change a puzzle to be worked out. When Grandma ventures out into the snow just before twilight, it is Evan who realizes the danger and manages to find a way to rescue her. Jessie, determined to solve the mystery of the missing bell, enlists the help of Grandma's young neighbor Maxwell, with his unusual habitual gestures and his surprising ability to solve jigsaw puzzles. She is unprepared, however, for the terror of seeing the neighbor boys preparing a mechanical torture device to tear a live frog to pieces. Each of the siblings brings a personal resilience and heroism to the resolution.
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-56737-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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