Smart, lively, and genuine, Clara Humble will feel familiar to anyone who has ever ignored that worried feeling in the pit...
Clara Humble (who is not so humble) gets to show off her stuff on television when her favorite show, Smarty Pants, comes to town!
The only trouble is that she’s competing with lots of her friends, including her best friend, Bradley. And to make matters worse, the age-old battle between the girls and the boys erupts into a full-blown war, both on the playground and on the set. When she and Bradley find themselves in opposition on the gender issue, Clara worries that her best friend has gone to the dark side. Will the two of them be able to keep their friendship despite the stress of competition? And how far will Clara go to prove that she’s the best at answering trivia questions while wallowing around in vats of pudding? Humphrey’s second Clara Humble book delivers another exciting adventure featuring a group of characters who feel pleasingly authentic and who find themselves in tricky situations that require sharper-than-usual creative thinking skills. (Naming conventions point to some diversity among Clara’s classmates, but Clara and Bradley appear to be white.) Paired with Clara’s comic-strip drawings featuring @Cat, superheroine extraordinaire, the lively narrative and cunning plot points provide a nifty adventure and an exploration of the consequences of going with the crowd.
Smart, lively, and genuine, Clara Humble will feel familiar to anyone who has ever ignored that worried feeling in the pit of their stomach . (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77147-215-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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