“So if you’re smart, you’ll read my book / Of modern children’s etiquette. / If you don’t, I’m sad to say— / Your life will be pathetiquette.” So opines Miss Information, who goes on to offer chancy guidance for a range of situations, from the proper way to drink from a gravy boat to keeping the babysitter locked up, from shaking hands or kissing (“With emperors and empresses / You only kiss their cheeks. / With giant thrashing octopi / You only kiss their beaks”) to “correct” behavior in museums and libraries. Most of the 20 rhymed entries are prefaced with a perspective-setting quotation from Emily Post or some like authority, and all are surrounded by Westcott’s exuberant cartoon young folk happily acting out before a corps of befuddled grown-ups. Joining a spate of recent jocular takes on the topic (see, for instance, Alan Katz’s Are You Quite Polite? Silly Dilly Manners Songs, 2006), this may make its case for civilized behavior indirectly, but even dimmer readers will “getiquette.” (Picture book/poetry. 7-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-34990-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
Nina is worried that her best friend, Jay, might not be her best friend anymore.
Nina Soni has been best friends with Jay Davenport since before she was born. But when Jay’s cousins move to town, he has less and less time for Nina—so little time, in fact, that she wonders if they’re still best friends. Nina is so distracted that she forgets about her Personal Narrative Project, an assignment in which Nina is supposed to write about something interesting that’s happened to her. At first, Nina wonders how she’ll ever write the essay when her family—and, by extension, her life—is so boring. But when Jay announces that he’s going to write the best PNP ever, Nina sees his challenge as a way to recover their friendship. Sheth’s language is poetic in its simplicity, and her narratorial voice is a pleasure to read. The book particularly sparkles whenever Nina interacts with her small but tightknit family, especially when she has to rescue her quirky younger sister, Kavita, from endless scrapes. The conflict between Nina and Jay, however, feels forced and tangential to the story, which really centers on Nina’s personal narrative and her loving, albeit exasperating, relationship with her family. Both Nina and Jay are Indian American; she on both sides of her family and he through his mother (his father is white).
A sweet and entertaining series opener about family and friendship. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68263-057-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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