There is little that 13-year-old Manuel Luis Menendez likes about his mother and new stepfather’s decision to move from New Haven, Conn., to boring Rockport, Maine. The backward coastal town lacks the amenities—pizza, Pepsi and video arcades—that Manuel enjoyed back home. The locals see Manuel as an outsider and make offensive remarks about his Puerto Rican ethnicity. Eager to earn bus fare back to New Haven, Manuel secures a job helping the curmudgeonly Zeke on his lobster boat. The two form an unlikely friendship, and Zeke shows Manuel a secret cove known for its rich deposit of mussels. The lobsterman claims a big chunk of change can be made by harvesting the “black gold.” Manuel’s quest for cash puts his life, and that of a local boy who befriends him, in grave danger. While Manuel’s feelings of frustration and isolation are realistically portrayed, this first novel is flawed by awkward dialogue and stereotyped portrayals of the region and characters. Middle graders may nevertheless enjoy this lighthearted adventure, if they can get past the unfortunately unappealing cover. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59078-516-4
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
Budding billionaire Greg Kenton has a knack for making money and a serious rival. When he issues his first Chunky Comic Book at the beginning of sixth grade, his neighbor and classmate Maura Shaw produces an alternative. Their quarrel draws the attention of the principal, who bans comics from the school. But when they notice all the other commercial messages in their school, they take their cause to the local school committee. Without belaboring his point, Clements takes on product placement in schools and the need for wealth. “Most people can only use one bathroom at a time,” says Greg’s math teacher, Mr. Z. Greg gets the message; middle-grade readers may ignore it in favor of the delightful spectacle of Greg’s ultimate economic success, a pleasing result for the effort this up-and-coming young businessman puts into his work. Clements weaves intriguing information about comic book illustration into this entertaining, smoothly written story. Selznick’s accompanying black-and-white drawings have the appearance of sketches Greg might have made himself. This hits the jackpot. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-86683-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
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
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