Do not be deceived by the diminutive trim size and aloofly posed but pettable-looking feline on the cover: there’s nothing warm or fuzzy about this eerie tale of a family enslaved by an adopted stray. The kitten that slips into the yard one day seems to hypnotize everyone in the Burrell family except baby Luke, the dog Billy—and narrator David, 12, who watches with increasing alarm as his parents and little sister lose track of their jobs, friends, and lives to feed and care for it. Feeding ravenously, it doubles in size each week, becoming in the process less catlike, and more—something else. As the creature stays out of sight, David is unable to convince anyone that something’s amiss—cats are often pampered, right? At last, with the aid of a friend, he concocts a desperate, chancy plan to drive it away. With tiny, somber vignettes enhancing the spooky atmosphere, this episode makes decidedly unsafe bedtime reading—but, like Robert Westall’s Stones of Muncaster Cathedral (1993), it offers in a small package both big, delicious chills, and, for sharper readers, a cautionary metaphor to chew over. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2004
ISBN: 0-385-73186-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
IN THE NEWS
From Johnston (An Old Shell, 1999, etc.), poetic phrases that follow a ghostly barn owl through days and nights, suns and moons. Barn owls have been nesting and roosting, hunting and hatching in the barn and its surroundings for as long as the barn has housed spiders, as long as the wheat fields have housed mice, “a hundred years at least.” The repetition of alliterative words and the hushed hues of the watercolors evoke the soundless, timeless realm of the night owl through a series of spectral scenes. Short, staccato strings of verbs describe the age-old actions and cycles of barn owls, who forever “grow up/and sleep/and wake/and blink/and hunt for mice.” Honey-colored, diffused light glows in contrast to the star-filled night scenes of barn owls blinking awake. A glimpse into the hidden campestral world of the elusive barn owl. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-981-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
Readers may wonder who to root for in this disappointing follow-up to one of the best animal stories in years.
Still grieving over the loss of her beau Ragweed of Poppy (1995), the intrepid deer mouse decides to bring the sad news to his family in this uneven, heavy-handed sequel.
Setting out from Dimwood Forest with her hopelessly infatuated porcupine friend, Ereth, Poppy arrives just in time to help Ragweed’s parents and numerous siblings avert eviction. Led by ruthless Caster P. Canad, a crew of beavers has dammed up the nearby brook in preparation for a housing project. The mice have already been flooded out of one home, and their new one is about to be threatened. Saddened—but also secretly relieved to be out from under his brother’s shadow—dreamy Rye dashes out to see what he can do against the beavers, and is quickly captured. Having fallen in love with him at first sight, Poppy organizes a rescue, urging the meek mice to fight back; they do. The bad guys silently depart, and Poppy and Rye set a date. Avi develops his characters to a level of complexity that provides a distracting contrast with the simplistic story, an obvious take on human land-use disputes, and easily distinguishable victims and villains. In language more ugly than colorful, Ereth chews over his feelings for Poppy in several plot-stopping passages, and is last seen accompanying the happy couple back to Dimwood.
Readers may wonder who to root for in this disappointing follow-up to one of the best animal stories in years. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-380-97638-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
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