Mimi’s relationship with her parents is frustratingly superficial, until her father leaves to attend his dying brother....
Using a box of enchanted pastels, 12-year-old Chinese-Australian Mimi Lu creates a fantasy garden with supernatural properties.
Mimi’s relationship with her parents is frustratingly superficial, until her father leaves to attend his dying brother. Oblivious to the bullying she faces at school, he pressures her only to succeed. After her art teacher recognizes her talent and pain and gives her the ancient pastels of Chinese Empress Cassia, she immerses herself in drawing a beautiful garden on the sidewalk. Those in emotional pain can magically step into the garden and be healed. Working together, Mimi and her mother offer tea to the crowd that forms around the garden, shared work resolving their emotional distance. But Mimi’s worst bully steals the pastels, potentially deadly in the wrong hands, and she must try to get them back. Partly because of this Australian import’s sheer brevity, only Mimi springs to life. Other characters are nearly colorless, and often stereotypical. While the bicultural issues Mimi faces offer a rich canvas for potential exploration—never fully developed—resolution of her problems comes too readily and predictably. Tiny, attractive pencil sketches begin each chapter, but don’t add measurably to the presentation.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61067-049-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Eleven-year-old Griffin Bing is “the man with the plan.” If something needs doing, Griffin carefully plans a fix and his best friend Ben usually gets roped in as assistant. When the town council ignores his plan for a skate park on the grounds of the soon-to-be demolished Rockford House, Griffin plans a camp-out in the house. While there, he discovers a rare Babe Ruth baseball card. His family’s money worries are suddenly a thing of the past, until unscrupulous collectables dealer S. Wendell Palomino swindles him. Griffin and Ben plan to snatch the card back with a little help. Pet-lover Savannah whispers the blood-thirsty Doberman. Rock-climber “Pitch” takes care of scaling the house. Budding-actor Logan distracts the nosy neighbor. Computer-expert Melissa hacks Palomino’s e-mail and the house alarm. Little goes according to plan, but everything turns out all right in this improbable but fun romp by the prolific and always entertaining Korman. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-439-90344-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
Ordinary kids in an extraordinary setting: still a recipe for bright achievements and belly laughs.
Rejoice! 25 years later, Wayside School is still in session, and the children in Mrs. Jewls’ 30th-floor classroom haven’t changed a bit.
The surreal yet oddly educational nature of their misadventures hasn’t either. There are out-and-out rib ticklers, such as a spelling lesson featuring made-up words and a determined class effort to collect 1 million nail clippings. Additionally, mean queen Kathy steps through a mirror that turns her weirdly nice and she discovers that she likes it, a four-way friendship survives a dumpster dive after lost homework, and Mrs. Jewls makes sure that a long-threatened “Ultimate Test” allows every student to show off a special talent. Episodic though the 30 new chapters are, there are continuing elements that bind them—even to previous outings, such as the note to an elusive teacher Calvin has been carrying since Sideways Stories From Wayside School (1978) and finally delivers. Add to that plenty of deadpan dialogue (“Arithmetic makes my brain numb,” complains Dameon. “That’s why they’re called ‘numb-ers,’ ” explains D.J.) and a wild storm from the titular cloud that shuffles the school’s contents “like a deck of cards,” and Sachar once again dishes up a confection as scrambled and delicious as lunch lady Miss Mush’s improvised “Rainbow Stew.” Diversity is primarily conveyed in the illustrations.
Ordinary kids in an extraordinary setting: still a recipe for bright achievements and belly laughs. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296538-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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