New in town and already at odds with Marigold Stass, the boastful, charismatic girl in her class who happens to live next door, Jannie reluctantly accepts a job with reclusive Mr. Flower, who wants help gentling a pony that he hopes to give his city grandson, Arthur. Gradually, as Jannie and Mr. Flower work with the pony, Pearl, she gets to know him: shy when he was a boy, he loved poetry but didn't get his high-school diploma because he refused to recite in public—yet his son is a lawyer. Meanwhile, Jannie, who is learning what it means to be left out—as Mr. Flower has always been—is also discovering that the Stasses are a warm, loving family and that her vendetta with Marigold is less one-sided than she imagined. When Arthur finally comes, he too is shy, and terrified of Pearl; moreover, Arthur's dad is planning, without consulting Mr. Flower, to place the grandfather in a home. This precipitates an explosive family—and sets the stage for closer ties between Mr. Flower and his neighbors. The conclusion is a bit pat—a young Stass takes Arthur's place on the pony, while Jannie and Marigold become close friends—but the parallels are thoughtful, and the relationships have been built with unobtrusive care. A slim, approachable story that covers some familiar themes with more sensitivity than usual. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: June 14, 1991
ISBN: 0-8050-1573-6
Page Count: 117
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
With comically realistic black-and-white illustrations by Selznick (The Robot King, 1995, etc.), this is a captivating...
Nicholas is a bright boy who likes to make trouble at school, creatively.
When he decides to torment his fifth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Granger (who is just as smart as he is), by getting everyone in the class to replace the word "pen'' with "frindle,'' he unleashes a series of events that rapidly spins out of control. If there's any justice in the world, Clements (Temple Cat, 1995, etc.) may have something of a classic on his hands. By turns amusing and adroit, this first novel is also utterly satisfying. The chess-like sparring between the gifted Nicholas and his crafty teacher is enthralling, while Mrs. Granger is that rarest of the breed: a teacher the children fear and complain about for the school year, and love and respect forever after.
With comically realistic black-and-white illustrations by Selznick (The Robot King, 1995, etc.), this is a captivating tale—one to press upon children, and one they'll be passing among themselves. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-689-80669-8
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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