First published in England in 2010, this promises another engaging chapter-book series, a treat for lively middle-grade boys.
Oluwalase Babatunde Benson, otherwise known as No. 1, is not only the best car-spotter in his African village, his electric ideas improve village life.
Nigerian-born Atinuke (Anna Hibiscus, 2010, etc.) introduces an energetic new character and an unusual setting in her latest title. While Anna’s suburban life resembles that of American children in many ways, No. 1 lives in a tiny village with “few compounds and many goats and several cows.” The men, and even many of the women, have gone off to the city to make money, leaving single-parent families and elderly grandparents. No. 1 helps his family in the fields, runs errands and goes to market, but his favorite activity is car-spotting—identifying the cars that pass on the road by sound and sight, as his grandfather did before him. As in Anna and her sequels, these four interconnected short stories revel in the language and rhythms of oral storytelling. In one story, No. 1 convinces a cousin to chop up a dead Toyota, turning it into a Cow-rolla. In another, his father makes an unintended use of wheelbarrows given to the village by the NGO man. The gentle humor is reflected in Cadwell’s gray-scale cartoon drawings on every page.
First published in England in 2010, this promises another engaging chapter-book series, a treat for lively middle-grade boys. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61067-051-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bailey’s life is lousy—yes, really louse-y, because she and all the other fifth graders have head lice! The Maine island–dweller's problems start when she opts to go to the mainland for school. What’s bugging her? Her birthday party is cancelled; her best friend doesn’t seem to be her best friend anymore; her pet parakeet gets loose and lost; her Mom threatens to cut her long hair, which she’s growing to donate to Care Through Hair for her Aunt Jess, who is bald from cancer—all this because of the lice. School embarrassment, the dreaded shampoo, a historic tea-party reenactment, ferry rides to school are all lathered into the plot, too. The story line has too many nit-picking contrivances: the teacher who always reacts positively, why the school nurse chooses to send her back to the classroom, Bailey’s gloomy stubbornness and the convenience of the historical society’s event. Purposeful in a lighthearted way but guaranteed to make your head—scalp and brain—itch! (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-42286-0
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
Lots of laughs and hijinks make this fast-paced series great for readers with a sophisticated funny bone.
Best buddies Hooey and Twig are back, this time competing in a contest to invent something that will make the world a safer place.
Hooey wouldn’t usually find such a challenge particularly interesting, but health-and-safety teacher Miss Troutson is sweetening the pot. The winning design will garner tickets to the local fair. Setting his tale in the fictional English village of Shrimpton, Voake brings to life the silly machinations of Hooey, who always has some sort of half-baked plan, and his gullible pal, Twig. Here, Hooey’s plan involves entering inflatable Tremendous Trousers stuffed with bubble wrap and powered by diet soda and mints into the safety contest. Hooey’s older (and mathematically inclined) brother, Will, has ideas, too, and his scheme to make money off bully Basbo threatens Twig’s life. In the end, Twig dresses as a woman in a pair of his grandmother’s yellow stretch trousers and spews diet soda and mints all over the safety assembly. Seems those TremTrows were not so safe after all. Crazy situations follow Twig and Hooey, and each episode is described in hilarious detail with lively language (“eyes bulged like soft-boiled eggs” or “lit up like two cracked headlights”). Humorous black-and-white illustrations are the ideal foil for this over-the-top buddy tale.
Lots of laughs and hijinks make this fast-paced series great for readers with a sophisticated funny bone. (Chapter book. 7-11)Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6923-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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