Chicken is the name Jimmie Little gave himself because of the fears he developed the summer after his father was killed in a mine accident, but readers will find Jimmie is only sensible, as compared with his mother's beloved, less cautious brother Pete. For here it's not his father's but his uncle's death that is bothering Jimmie, Pete the clown having insisted on walking across a thinly iced-over fiver because of a bet in a bar. Jimmie is in the crowd watching when it happens, and though he runs to the water's edge shouting for Pete to come back, his mother's first reaction is to blame him for not making Pete stop. To make things worse, Jimmie's subsequent brooding ("Did I do enough?") offends his insensitive friend Conrad, and the two boys fight. When his mother suddenly recovers and decides to throw a family party—a sort of celebration of Pete—Jimmie is unable to join in the merriment until, drifting outside and viewing them through the picture window, he sees the fun-loving family as his mother does, unique individuals to cherish. It's a stance Byars has taken all along, cherishing the quirky traits that would be just as easy to scorn. Nevertheless, this crucial final revelation hasn't half the conviction, say, of Jimmie's earlier realization that he doesn't like Conrad. And Byars never really reconciles Pete's tragic childishness with such amusing family foibles as his mother's inept driving and her outspoken 92-year-old uncle's crotchets. Still, Jimmie's feelings throughout are represented in depth, and revealed in flashes of insight that hit the mark; and the story hums with the currents that flow between him and the others.
Pub Date: March 1, 1979
ISBN: 0064402916
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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