Setting her story in the third year of the Civil War, Reeder (Foster’s War, p. 61, etc.) writes of a young girl who takes it upon herself to pilot the family’s canal boat 184 miles from Cumberland, Maryland to Georgetown. Kate, 12, learning that her newly remarried, pregnant mother plans to rent out the family’s canal boat, decides to make the journey herself, grudgingly enlisting the help of her new stepbrother, Seth. As the two face the dangers of navigating the canal’s locks, both are forced to accept and deal with unpleasant insights about themselves as well as one another. Reeder’s detailed and realistic narrative of canal life provides a fascinating portrait of a period unique in US history. The real strength of the novel, however, is in the depiction of the complex, tangled relationship that forms between Kate and Seth, and the emotional growth they experience as they struggle to reconcile their feelings about sharing a new family. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-380-97628-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
Seventh grade is getting the better of Wilf Farkus until, for a science project, he buys a kit for ``OceanPups'' that grow not the expected brine shrimp but an instant clone. The ``other Wilf'' has a computerlike mind and—after a few hours of listening to radio—the language and personality of a DJ. The ``real'' Wilf sends him off to school in his place and—with some fancy footwork—manages to keep the fact that there are two of him a secret until he's kidnapped by two bumbling but sinister geneticists who explain that the mix-up was caused by a lab accident. Enter Wilf (the newer one), loyally dashing to the rescue. After a mad chase, the police arrive; when the dust settles, the other Wilf has become a brand-new, suddenly orphaned ``Cousin Steve'' sharing the real Wilf's bedroom. For Beatrice Gormley fans, a well-thought-out, antic adventure. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-76376-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
Tony's father hasn't been home in months; his mother Eileen spends days ``sick'' in bed, leaving four-year-old Christy on her own. Only on the baseball field does Tony feel safe and in control. Gradually, he realizes that his mother's illness is not flu but alcoholism. When she is hospitalized after a fall, Dad returns, admitting that he had fled the problem rather than face it; he patiently bears Tony's hot anger, and by the end they are friends, waiting for Eileen—still at the denial stage—to come home. Tony performs heroically in several games, but the baseball action takes a backseat to his bitter discovery that his parents are imperfect. With insight, Anderson, author of Coming Home: Children's Stories for Adult Children of Alcoholics (1988), explores the effects (though not the causes) of alcoholism on a family, properly offering no easy solutions. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-689-31686-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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