Solid middle-grade fare. Ten-year-old Apple Olson is particularly sensitive when Barnaby Thompson calls her mother a witch, because it happens to be true. She's a good witch, though, whose tricks include turning the rice crackers in Apple's lunch into oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. She's absolutely adamant that she won't share any of her sorcery with Apple for another six years. But Barnaby requires special treatment, and when Apple overhears a spell, one thing leads to another until, ``Ribbetty, rabbitty, rug,/Turn Barnaby into a slug.'' Only then does Apple understand her mother's caution regarding spells—they're easy to cast and the consequences are tricky. This well-paced tale is not entirely seamless, but the characterizations are good and tension builds as Apple's efforts to untangle her situation only make it worse. Highly detailed, comic black-and-white pictures throughout add to the fun. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-56402-541-1
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
After his grandmother gives him an old riding lawnmower for his summer birthday, this comedy’s 12-year-old narrator putt-putts into a series of increasingly complex and economically advantageous adventures. As each lawn job begets another, one client—persuasive day-trader Arnold Howell—barters market investing and dubious local business connections. Our naïve entrepreneur thus unwittingly acquires stock in an Internet start-up and a coffin company; a capable landscaping staff of 15 and the sponsorship of a hulking boxer named Joseph Powdermilk. There’s a semi-climactic scuffle with some bad guys bent on appropriating the lawn business, but Joey Pow easily dispatches them. If there’s tension here, it derives from the unremitting good news: While the reader may worry that Arnold’s a rip-off artist, Joey Pow will blow his fight, or (at the very least) the parents will go ballistic once clued in—all ends refreshingly well. The most complicated parts of this breezy affair are the chapter titles, which seem lifted from an officious, tenure-track academician’s economics text. Capital! (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: June 12, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-74686-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
Pippi is an inspired creation knit from daydreams.
A fresh delicious fantasy that children will love.
In the character of 9-year-old Pippi Longstocking, who was lucky to have no parents to tell her what to do, is a juvenile Robin Hood with the authority of Mammy Yokum and a Mighty Mouse. Pippi- red headed, in longstockings (one black and one brown), and the strongest girl in the world was the friend of Tommy and Annika. Calmly and ingeniously she put down the enemy forces of the adult world — with a serene efficiency. The teacher was baffled by her logic in pointing out the futility of learning arithmetic; bullies she hoisted on trees; at the circus Pippi rode bareback, walked the tightrope, and wrestled the wrestling champ; cream and sugar flowed (on the floor) when Pippi attended a ladies' coffee party where she revealed "horrid things" with the complacency of Eliza Doolittle. Champion of fun, freedom and fantasy and long happy thoughts,
Pippi is an inspired creation knit from daydreams.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1950
ISBN: 978-0-14-030957-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1950
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