Popeye’s life lacks excitement, living as he does down a gravel road bordering the woods in rural South Carolina with his dog Boo and his Grandmother Velma, who preserves her sanity by incessantly reciting the kings and queens of England. So when a silver motor home packed with the six wild children of the Jewell family gets stuck and stranded in the mud, he couldn’t be happier. During the brief, magical time the motor home remains, he and Elvis, the eldest Jewell, discover in the creek boats fashioned from Yoo-hoo packages, each with an intriguing message. The mystery of their source demands resolution, although it means occasionally disobeying Velma’s edicts. Seeking the source of the boats, their adventures are, as the title indicates, mild, but they perfectly capture the thrills that fill long summer days. Although O’Connor only briefly describes the characters, each one comes instantly and distinctly to life. Fast-paced, short and easy to read, but spiced up with the challenging vocabulary words that Velma teaches and Popeye adores and abounding with quirky, likable characters, this small gem has the power to keep readers entranced. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-374-37055-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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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
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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