Wartime adventure with plenty of heart.
Darling, a rambunctious family dog, is drafted to serve in the British Army during World War I.
The dog’s-eye view offers a unique look at the lives of both two-footed and four-footed soldiers fighting at the front. Darling, desperate to return home, looks for every opportunity to run away, but when she happens upon a wounded soldier, she also discovers her true calling as a “mercy dog,” searching out soldiers in need. Other dogs in her regiment are trained as messengers, scouts or sentries. Dogs travel with their handlers through France and Belgium toward their ultimate destination: no man’s land. Darling quickly learns the brutality of war, watching dogs and soldiers die on both sides of the battlefield. She notes that the hated Germans are barely older than the children she left behind at home. The simple narrative is detailed but never graphic. Specifics about weapons and geography often outpace a dog’s understanding, but this break in narration is only occasionally distracting. While never shying away from the tragedies of battle, Darling’s story focuses on bravery, sacrifice and devotion. Finely detailed pencil sketches and an afterword explaining the history behind the story are included.
Wartime adventure with plenty of heart. (Historical fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-56145-705-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Believable and endearing characters in a realistic elementary-school setting will be just the thing for fans of Clementine...
When the promised land of third grade does not pan as promised, Marty McGuire finds herself playing a completely new role.
Mrs. Aloi, her maracas-shaking teacher, is putting together the parts for the class play of The Frog Prince, and she decides that Marty is perfect for the part of the princess. Marty, who prefers learning about frog anatomy to kissing or, worse, throwing a frog, is horrified. She gets little support from her scientist mother or her teacher father—a princess she shall be! On top of this bad news, Marty’s best friend has joined the girly-girl group and does not seem interested in playing outside and pretending to be Jane Goodall anymore. Messner gets all the details of third grade right: the social chasm between the girls who want to be like the older kids and the ones who are still little girls, the Mad Minutes for memorizing arithmetic facts, the silly classroom-control devices teachers use and the energy students of this age put into projects like class plays. Floca’s black-and-white sketches are filled with movement and emotion and are frequent enough to help new chapter-book readers keep up with this longer text.
Believable and endearing characters in a realistic elementary-school setting will be just the thing for fans of Clementine and Ramona. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-14244-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Appealing any time of the year.
Brooklyn fourth-grader Hank Wolowitz faces his worst Halloween ever when his invisible friend, Inkling, discovers that pumpkins are his favorite kind of food.
It's hard enough to keep the bandapat in the laundry basket a secret from his parents, his sister, Nadia, his downstairs neighbor Chin and his classmates. Just keeping him fed takes all the pay from his job at the family ice-cream parlor, and he's had to invent a top-secret project to explain all the squash he's been buying. When Inkling goes bananas and chews up Nadia's artwork—four intricately carved pumpkins—Hank takes the blame for the violence. Worse, although his father had promised to use one of his ideas for their special Halloween ice-cream flavor this year, they are advertising his sister's stupid candy crunch. Finally, he has no one to go trick-or-treating with. Hank’s first-person narration is appropriately self-pitying. But while his unseen pet can cause trouble, the bandapat also helps. Gentle humor and a realistic urban setting add interest to this solid middle-grade read. Unlike Hank, readers can actually see the bandapat in Bliss’ gray-scale cartoons. (Final art not seen.) Events of the first book (Invisible Inkling, 2011) are summarized early on, and Jenkins introduces her characters and the situation so smoothly that readers can easily start here.
Appealing any time of the year. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: July 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-180223-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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