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
Certain to steal hearts.
In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.
She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. The author’s note touches on climate change, the illegal ivory trade, and conservation efforts, but the highly emotive framing of the story through the memories of a bewildered baby elephant emphasizes the impact of lines such as “ ‘in Africa,’ I say softly, ‘there were bad people,’ ” without offering readers a nuanced understanding of the broader context that drives poaching.
Certain to steal hearts. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780063080089
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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