Proof positive that an open heart can overcome hurt.
Eleven-year-old Raymond gains what his mother lacks: self-knowledge and roots.
When Raymond is sent to spend the summer with his grandparents in Maine, he’s sure it’s punishment for the trouble he and best friend Trixy caused during his dad’s last music tour. Raymond doesn’t remember his mother Abigail’s parents, probably because Abigail abandoned Raymond, his sister, and dad years ago. His grandparents sure don’t know Raymond: They call him “backward” and encourage him to go biking, swimming—make friends! Raymond doesn’t know how to do any of those things, but he’s determined to learn. Despite his doubts and discomfort, Raymond is genuine and funny in all his interactions. The colorful cast of mostly White characters is well drawn, as is the small town of Winter’s Peak. Raymond slowly realizes he’s making connections with people of all ages, plus one chicken, and that each individual’s story is becoming intertwined with his own. He draws on them all—his experiences and theirs—when Abigail shows up for an unannounced, self-serving visit to her parents. Raymond thinks he tells himself lies, but he bravely confronts the truth about Abigail: She cannot love him the way he deserves to be loved. It’s a gut punch made bearable because Raymond has developed the core strength and friendships to help him through. This heartfelt, emotionally insightful companion to To Tell You the Truth (2021) is accessible to readers unfamiliar with the previous book.
Proof positive that an open heart can overcome hurt. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-088-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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