Smith invites readers to travel an even Longer Way from Chicago with this summertime, old-time, small-town slice-of-life, as viewed by a hilariously matter-of-fact young resident. Amid a whirl of comings, goings, budding romances, pranks, tiffs, schemes and revelations, Paolo—one of ten sibs in a tumultuous Irish-Italian extended family—wanders his notably multi-ethnic California town in search of clues after his church’s weekly collection disappears. Along with his deaf, sharp-as-a-tack cousin Billy, Paolo stumbles into plenty of new experiences as he goes, from driving (and wrecking) a car and suffering through his first dance, to getting a gander at the life of Terence, a rich but neglected peer. All the while he’s dropping pithy insights and wrestling with his conscience over whether to keep the money when he finds it. By the time the cash turns up, he’s come around to a willingness to do the right thing—and has learned that there is more to some people, specifically Terence, than he’d suspected. Set in the early 1950s, this upbeat tale offers a strong sense of place, plenty of growing-up and enough spirited characters to justify Paolo’s opening, enticingly annotated, cast of characters. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-87606-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Richard Jackson/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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