This is not a story about a jolly, red-suited, fat man and his exploits in the hereafter. Instead, it’s a readable, sometimes humorous, and generally implausible novel about the unusual friendships forged by two pairs of unlike young people in the town of Heaven, Florida (pop. 6). Williams (My Angelica, 1999, etc.) tells of 12-year-old Honey DeLoach, who lives with her parents and obnoxious 14-year-old brother, Willie-Bill, in a place that doesn’t even exist on a map. Into this close-knit and religious family sweeps famous movie star Miriam Season and her two daughters, 12-year-old Christmas and 17-year-old Easter. Readers will wonder why a renowned personality would choose to live in a remote backwater (the later explanation doesn’t really ring true); how she would even know about the town in the first place (not explained); and how Miriam, prior to her move, would know how many boys were in the town (also unexplained). Willie-Bill is smitten with delinquent, bizarre Easter immediately; Honey and Christmas quickly become inseparable friends. Both Season daughters have been ignored by their shallow, self-absorbed mother all their lives and have reacted to her neglect in very different ways. Christmas is desperately sad and lonely; Easter is reprobate and an alcoholic. Under the steadying influence of the DeLoach family and through, literally, the saving grace of Honey’s grandfather, a famous evangelist preacher, Christmas discovers a new meaning to life, and both she and Honey grow in friendship and devotion. Willie-Bill and Easter don’t fare so well. Apparently unsalvageable, Easter exerts her unsavory influence upon the boy, whose judgment has been thoroughly clouded, and tragedy ultimately ensues. Kids may not buy all of this, but there’s appeal in Honey and Christmas’s likable and sympathetic characters. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-23436-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories.
Percy Jackson takes a break from adventuring to serve up the Greek gods like flapjacks at a church breakfast.
Percy is on form as he debriefs readers concerning Chaos, Gaea, Ouranos and Pontus, Dionysus, Ariadne and Persephone, all in his dude’s patter: “He’d forgotten how beautiful Gaea could be when she wasn’t all yelling up in his face.” Here they are, all 12 Olympians, plus many various offspring and associates: the gold standard of dysfunctional families, whom Percy plays like a lute, sometimes lyrically, sometimes with a more sardonic air. Percy’s gift, which is no great secret, is to breathe new life into the gods. Closest attention is paid to the Olympians, but Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco’s artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning—so readers will also meet Makaria, “goddess of blessed peaceful deaths,” and the Theban Teiresias, who accidentally sees Athena bathing. She blinds him but also gives him the ability to understand the language of birds. The atmosphere crackles and then dissolves, again and again: “He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night.”
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories. (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8364-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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