Orphaned and grieving, Livvy is dismayed when her dying mother Althea's wish leaves her in the care of a woman she's never heard of. Who is this Jessie Barnes? An old college roommate, Livvy learns—a moth next to the vivid butterfly that was Althea—and a quiet, sensible woman who runs an antiques shop with her own mother, Ivy. Livvy also learns that Jessie hasn't known about Althea's wish much longer than she has. Rodowsky (Hannah in Between, 1994, etc.) gives Livvy plenty of support adapting to her new home, new town, and new fifth grade: Lu, a decidedly un-shy classmate; Charlie Farley, a neighbor with a gift for offhanded pearls of wisdom; and patient, low-key Jessie Barnes, who seems almost colorless next to her loving, boisterous parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. Although Livvy occasionally bursts out in what Althea always called ``wanton words,'' her grief and anger are relatively restrained, and in time she grasps just how hard it was for risk-shy Jessie to accept her new responsibilities. By the end, the two have found ways to reach one another, and when the shop burns down, it's Livvy's turn to help Jessie through a loss. The author never pontificates, readers will take to the immensely likable cast, and Jessie's and Althea's characters burst forth from Livvy's narration as vividly as her own. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: March 27, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-37889-4
Page Count: 135
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The ghastliness of a local rite of passage gives this tale of a boy's inner battle between revulsion and his desire to fit in a whiff of Cormier—but with some belly laughs from Spinelli (The Library Card, p. 650, etc.) to lighten the load. In the popular fund-raiser that caps the town of Waymer's annual, weeklong Family Fest, entrants gun down thousands of live pigeons, while, under the guidance of a "wringmaster"' ten-year-old boys are enlisted to break the necks of birds that are only wounded. Even after winning acceptance (and a nickname, "Snots") from neighborhood bully Beans, and learning to join in the relentless harassment of his one-time friend, Dorothy Gruzik, Palmer regards his fast-approaching tenth birthday with dread. Then, like the Ancient Mariner's albatross, a pigeon appears at his bedroom window and moves in, calmly ignoring Palmer's halfhearted efforts to shoo it away. "Nipper" provides comic relief, both in its own behavior, and in Palmer's frantic attempts to conceal it from his parents and from Beans. He finds a—more or less—sympathetic ear in Dorothy, who, after some fence-mending, gives him the support and impetus he needs to make his true feelings known. She even spirits Nipper out of town as Family Fest approaches, but unknowingly leaves the pigeon where it can be captured for the shoot—and the stage is set for a dramatic rescue. A story both comic and disturbing, this is lit by Palmer's growing courage and Dorothy's surprising loyalty. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-024913-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
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