A meaningful story that’s hampered by an underdeveloped narrative.
In Sutton’s illustrated children’s book, an unhoused child finds new hope with a foster parent.
Maddie is a young girl facing tough challenges far beyond her years. Her parents and other relatives are either unable or unwilling to take care of her, so she bounces from home to home. “So, Maddie went from here to there, TRYING TO FIND HER SPACE, / It felt a little to Maddie like she was always in a race.” Humans fail her, so Maddie lives outside—in the trees with the birds (who can’t give her love) and in a cave with a bear (who doesn’t understand personal hygiene). At school, Maddie envies her classmates whose parents provide them with love and care, so she “did the best she could to love herself some more, / And told herself that one day, love would walk right through her door.” Fortunately, a woman appears at the school who offers to take care of her. Although the woman admits she can’t replace Maddie’s parents, she believes that she and the girl can learn and grow together. Maddie teaches her new caretaker how to braid her hair, while the woman teaches Maddie how to bake a cake and provides space and a home for the youngster’s sometimes-extreme moods. Maddie may not have expected to find a place to live this way, but now her dream has come true. In this follow-up to You Can Do Hard Things (2024), Sutton presents a touching story of a child struggling to settle down and deal with situations outside her control. Overall, its subject matter is generally underrepresented in children’s literature, especially regarding Maddie’s unhoused status. However, Sutton’s lilting, rhyming couplets undermine the gravity of the situation, and the foster mother’s appearance in the story is abrupt, raising questions about her legal right to help Maddie—a child who seemingly lives outside of the foster-care system. Still, Mueller’s illustrations, which feature defined lines and bold teals, greens, and grays, effectively emphasize Maddie’s sadness and optimism, by turns.
A meaningful story that’s hampered by an underdeveloped narrative.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781038311764
Page Count: 20
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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