Representations of autistic kids’ friendships are valuable, but this is not the cat’s meow.
A cat in need of a home finds a girl in need of a friend.
Franklin, a massive Maine coon cat who’s been homeless since he was accidentally separated from his person, finds a temporary new home. Franklin is persuaded to come inside by Chester, the therapy dog for Gus, an autistic boy who has seizures—a duo readers met in McGovern’s Chester and Gus (2017). Cat allergies mean Gus’ folks can’t be Franklin’s forever family, but he’s optimistic about Amelia, Gus’ classmate. Amelia adores cats, but Gus is her only friend. She’s an anxious kid, sometimes bullied and sometimes mean herself (once, she’s quite racist about a Korean American classmate’s food). Her parents pressure her to be a mathlete, but though she’s good at arithmetic, Amelia struggles with other types of math and hates being on the team. Conveniently, Franklin can communicate with her (what initially seems like realistic interspecies communication becomes a psychic bond), and he coaches her. Because of Chester, Franklin’s learned that you need to act like a friend to have friends. Amelia’s mother explores whether Amelia might have autism, though differently expressed than in mostly nonverbal Gus, while Franklin convinces Amelia to go back to mathletes. Outsider points of view are common in novels about autistic people, but a pet narrator who says that autism’s not shameful because autistic people just behave like cats is not quite the empowering message it’s intended to be. Main human characters read as White.
Representations of autistic kids’ friendships are valuable, but this is not the cat’s meow. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-246332-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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