Many entrepreneurs write about their successes, but Howie Fingerhut tells it all in his how-to book for success. Written with a sense of humor and a positive attitude, Howie’s journal chronicles the year of the H. Marion Muckley Junior Businessperson of the Year contest. Promised a trophy and a year’s worth of frozen desserts, Howie and his classmates each develop their own business in the attempt to outwit one another and win the prize. Howie plans to rake, shovel, and plant his way to riches as “A Boy for All Seasons,” while his classmates start equally challenging businesses such as tutor, Web designer, and bill collector. Unfortunately, Howie is bogged down with city ordinances outlawing pumpkin-colored garbage bags; blizzard-like snowstorms requiring hours of shoveling; and dead-beat customers who refuse to pay for his services. Even with his balance sheet in the red, though, Howie manages to keep smiling and writing through it all. Fortunately, he also has the foresight to provide suggestions to his future editor as to the illustrations and photographs that should appear in his manuscript, going so far as to leave space for them. Reading this might not “change your life,” as Howie suggests, but no one will be able to resist its spirit. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1642-9
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
The moral of this surreal episode would run something like this: never patronize a fast-food restaurant built where giant mutant bugs can crawl into the meat grinder. Young Roscoe learns this disgusting lesson almost too late when, after six months of nightly Gussy’s “Jungle Drum” burgers, he suddenly discovers that he’s beginning to resemble a praying mantis. Luckily, and despite the best efforts of Gussy’s CEO and cohorts to hush the whole thing up, Roscoe’s genius best friend Kinshasa Rosa Parks Boomer winkles out the cause. Also luckily, once Roscoe modifies his diet, the changes reverse. Elliott (Cool Crazy Crickets, 2000, etc.) is far from the first to take on a “boy-into-bug” premise, and though he introduces a memorably quirky cast, he doesn’t give it much to do besides solve the mystery of why this is happening to Roscoe and others. The high gross-out factor will draw some readers, but they’ll only find characters in search of a story. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1173-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
Twins Tod and Tessa face double trouble in a sidesplitting follow-up to Be First in the Universe (2000). When even an infusion of DNA extracted from evil Ned and Nancy Gneiss, descendants of Vlad the Impaler, proves too weak to save Planet Gemini from an invasion of galactic tourists known as Vorons, aliens Gemini Jack and his sister Jill return to Middle Valley Mall in search of more help from humans, renowned as the most annoying creatures in the universe. Meanwhile, not only have the altered Gneiss twins suddenly become sickeningly goody-goody, but veteran rock drummer Nigel Throbber has chosen Tod’s and Tessa’s barn to rehearse his thunderous magnum opus, “Drummerdämmerung.” Happily, relief is but a tangle of subplots, corny jokes, chases, general chaos, and clever twists away; by the end, the Gneiss twins are nasty again, and Throbber has happily departed on a wildly successful interplanetary tour. Though not a sequel that stands on its own, this will have readers rocking with laughter and rolling in the aisles. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 8, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32690-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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