This well-observed, funny book for middle schoolers scores high marks for the true-to-life observations, trials, and...
A spirited 12-year-old thinks he’ll never be anything but average until he recognizes his own gifts in this witty and wise novel for middle schoolers from a first-time author/illustrator.
Otis “O.K.” Kalshwonkee is small for his age, younger than most seventh graders, and afraid that his initials are fitting for someone who is cursed “to be average at everything” for the rest of his life. A move to the town of Boykinville is an opportunity for Otis to reforge his image, if only he can “break out of Mediocreland” and do something to impress his new classmates. Otis has high hopes even though he’ll be “a lowly bottom feeder” in a building where 12th graders rule. In his debut novel, author/illustrator Tiefenthaler brings likable Otis to life with witty first-person narration and kidlike pencil drawings that reflect a pre-adolescent boy’s observations and flights of fancy. It’s clear that Otis won’t let misfired science projects, detention-earning snafus, or even a bullying mean girl kill his spirit. Inspiration strikes when he notices “The Boykinville Board of Beasts,” a list of the school’s record holders in strength and speed competitions. “I’ll set a record so ridiculous, so amazing, that my name will be there until the apocalypse,” he thinks. Through yet another mishap, Otis discovers his gift for long distance running and starts training with his new friends Leo and Horace and plans to make his mark at last. Enter Stephanie, Otis’ self-appointed nemesis, who decides to escalate her bullying campaign. (Without sacrificing character or story, Tiefenthaler, a middle school teacher himself, aims his authoritative anti-bullying message at both adults and young people.) In the end, Otis feels more than OK about himself and his accomplishments, offering readers a “bonus chapter” with tips for new running enthusiasts and his design ideas for the Boykinville Beasts’ football helmets.
This well-observed, funny book for middle schoolers scores high marks for the true-to-life observations, trials, and successes of its lively 12-year-old protagonist.Pub Date: May 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-44663-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A must-own for fans of magic, Steele’s book is a fun peek into the history of magic’s golden age.
Steele assembles the long-lost memoirs of the “Queen of Magic,” a once-famous, nearly forgotten female magician.
Aside from Harry Houdini, few magicians from the golden age of magic have any contemporary name recognition—and any that do are men. Yet around the turn of the 20th century, Adelaide Herrmann held her own as a popular female magician. But because magic’s allure waned as the century wore on, few remember her. Enter Steele, a magician and Herrmann fan, who also performed tributes to the late magician. After acquiring Herrmann’s missing memoir in 2010 after it was discovered in a descendant’s closet, Steele edited it for this publication, a compilation of the memoirs along with an impressive selection of photographs, magazine articles and other ephemera. The memoir itself is compelling—it tells of her early life as a dancer and her falling in love with renowned magician Alexander Herrmann—although Steele notes that Herrmann “wasn’t above occasionally re-casting herself into anecdotes that had originally starred her husband. As much as I adore her, I don’t always trust her.” Alexander received all the attention during his life, and when he died, his nephew Leon briefly took over the act but proved ill-suited for the role. Herrmann next stepped up and made the show her own. She traveled across the United States and Europe, encountering floods and fires and often performing the “bullet catch” trick. It’s a fun story improved by Steele’s peppering the text with photographs to illustrate Herrmann’s text, giving the book the feeling of a well-loved scrapbook. The additional ephemera at the back of the book features writing about Herrmann’s costumes, articles Herrmann wrote for magazines about her job and numerous mentions of her in the press.
A must-own for fans of magic, Steele’s book is a fun peek into the history of magic’s golden age.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1883647216
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Intoxicatingly fun; disturbing yet hopeful.
Exuberant, uncensored and wise free verse informed by a benevolent relativism and populated with social outcasts.
Hill’s poems may surface from the depths of a savage city, but savage is hardly the adjective that comes to mind when reading them. Rendered in careful but vibrant language and filtered through Hill’s gently self-deprecating wit, even the grittiest of his poems evince a nonjudgmental candor and a tender concern for human foibles. East St. Louis pervades these poems, not merely as a setting, but as a sort of code, a paradigm and sometimes as a character itself. East St. Louis is the place to find a one-legged prostitute for $10; “a city of immorality and deception / where looking at the wrong woman / can get you killed” and “[taking] one in the leg” is just part of “an ordinary night.” Yet it’s also the place where “taxes are lower” and “people got soul,” where “Glamorous Candy” will pull you into the bathroom and “make life interesting.” Here, you’re part of “a dangerous, exciting, chaotic place.” Hill’s characters are not characters in East St. Louis; they’re characters because of East St. Louis. In fact, amid the scattered topics this collection covers, the one steady theme is the essentialness of context, which Hill explicitly addresses in “Fritangas,” a poem about a Colombian street food, a “beautiful food that comes / with children and dogs and flies / with dirt and smoke / with grease and hoke.” However, when the mayor attempts to clean up the street vendor operations—no “dogs and flies, / no dirt, no smoke, / no grease, no hoke”—the decontextualized fritangas “taste simply awful…clean as a virgin’s kiss.” Comparisons to Bukowski and his dedication to the down-and-out of Los Angeles are inevitable and accurate; Bukowski fans will be hooked immediately. Undeniable, too, is the Beat influence—jazzy rhythms and narrational confessions that echo Gregory Corso, or the long-lined, epic free verse shot through with barely contained eroticism and Eastern religious figures that calls Ginsburg to mind. Hill’s strengths are as varied as his topics. He has the eye and the sensitivity to convey a raw experience without compromise or condescension.
Intoxicatingly fun; disturbing yet hopeful.Pub Date: April 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-1448970087
Page Count: 118
Publisher: PublishAmerica
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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