Unhappy about the move that forces her to share a trailer bedroom with her two-year-old brother, third-grader Isabella Speedwalker-Juarez adopts a new motto, “I WON’T SHARE ’CUZ IT’S NOT FAIR.” Not surprisingly, this irritates her new friend Deborah, her new schoolmates and her little brother. But the adults around her deal gently with her anger, Zach, the fix-it man next door, models the opposite behavior and a tornado leaves others with more serious needs. Isabella learns about tradeoffs, uses the carwash money that was supposed to go toward a swimming pool to help a schoolmate’s family and discovers the important difference between enforced sharing and voluntary sharing. Gently humorous—especially in unusual names of the citizens of Center Longnose, TX—but there’s a strong moral undertone. Twelve lively cartoon-style drawings, reproduced in grey scale, illustrate Izzy’s family and a racially diverse set of classmates. The direct, uncomplicated prose and familiar vocabulary will add to the appeal of this transitional story for middle-grade readers who will surely recognize Izzy’s conflicted feelings. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: May 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-33617-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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The thoughtless words of childhood become the focus of the narrator's haunted memories of WW II. Helen recalls the events of her ninth birthday in occupied France in 1942. Lydia, her best friend, comes over to spend the night, and they amuse themselves by telling ghost stories. When a stranger wearing a yellow star like Lydia's comes looking for a place to hide, Lydia suddenly wants to go home. Helen is angry and shouts to the departing girl that she is not her friend anymore. The next day Lydia and her family have disappeared. The simple storyline brings together a complex combination of elements—ghost stories and fights between friends who suddenly find themselves in the context of war—all of which are penetrated by an equally complex narratorial voice, capable of differentiating among subtle shades of emotion. It belongs both to the old woman telling the story and to the nine-year-old girl she was. As a result of this layering of perspective, the characters and story have depth through minimal means (sketchy details, snatches of conversation). This is even more effective in the wondrous pictures. In her first book, Kang's palette contains only browns, grays, yellows, and redsmuted colors, forming the geometric interiors of barren apartments. If the individual colors and shapes in the pictures are simple, as a whole they create an intensely expressive atmosphere. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: May 8, 1995
ISBN: 0-8027-8373-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION
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