What happens to Harlan Kooter when Hannibal, an elephant, escapes from a circus and finds shelter in his mother's garage. Fantasy prevails here: Hannibal neither eats nor defecates, and he speaks vernacular English. While hotly pursued by police and the military, he and Harlan move at night—delivering papers, investigating swimming pools, hiding out. Then a hurricane sweeps the town and Hannibal emerges to save the class bully and the class smarty. After a hero's farewell, he seizes the opportunity to take a boat to Africa. Readers unfamiliar with clichÇs like small, red-haired paperboys and funny names will enjoy the broad comedy (e.g., Hannibal throwing everything out of a bakery truck to find cookies) and the fast-paced adventures. More experienced heads will nod. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-62523-8
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1992
Greene's first foray into humorous fiction for a younger audience than her popular series about Al and Isabelle. Since preschool, Oliver has had one ambition—to be a hero. Now he's finished fourth grade and is still trying, but misses his chances in one misadventure after another until, on the Fourth of July, his dog chokes on a chicken bone and he's able to save her with the Heimlich maneuver. The book as a whole is sitcom-like—slick and fast-paced, with lots of action and little depth, and without the serious touches that distinguished A Girl Called Al (1969)—while Oliver lacks Al's memorable quirkiness. A graceless caricature of a fat person, U. Crumm, the town clerk, who literally has to be hoisted off a restaurant floor after consuming six helpings of chili and seven of pie, and then slipping on an ice cube, seems unfortunate. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-84549-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
Fifth-grader Betsy, whose mother works in Jonas Salk's research lab, has an on-again, off-again friendship with fascinating, mischievous Leticia, whose mother is so fearful of polio that she believes every wild speculation about how it might be spread—even that it may be carried by Communists. At the height of 1952's epidemic, Leticia is stricken despite her mother's precautions, but is gamely fighting for recovery at the close. Though cold war fears are skillfully worked into the polio story, a number of ends are left hanging: after Betsy and Leticia flood the newly poured foundation of a neighbor's bomb shelter to make a swimming pool (public pools are closed), there are never any repercussions; nor do we learn whether a brief, mysterious illness of Betsy's is actually a mild case of polio. And though fear of contagion is a major theme, Weaver omits any information on how polio is transmitted, or its symptoms and progression. Neither fictionally nor instructionally up to the ``Once Upon America'' series' usual standard. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-84511-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
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