Light, bright, and believable, just right for young middle graders.
Small moments, both good and bad, characterize Izzy Kline's fourth-grade year, the year she finds a new best friend.
Short free-verse chapters, each with a school-related heading, describe memorable moments in Izzy's year, from the day she gets the postcard with her room assignment (not with her old friends) through snow days and spring break to the end-of-year picnic with her mom and Quinn, new in September and now her best friend. Ain makes background music of songs from Free to Be You and Me, the children's entertainment project that was shown in many schools in the 1970s, but it is set in the present time. White, Jewish Izzy is an appealing narrator with a convincing voice. There are joyful episodes: giggling with old friends as they practice their times tables; her solo in the fourth-grade performance. And there are serious, difficult ones: the Klines are divorced, which may not be a bad thing since sometimes Izzy’s father’s simmering anger boils over on to his family; her friend Quinn is a cancer survivor, and when she faints at school, everyone worries about a recurrence. But Izzy is resilient. She tends to think positively, and things work out in ways that will please. Izzy's classmates' identities are left purposely vague, a choice that does not disrupt the white default.
Light, bright, and believable, just right for young middle graders. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55080-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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