Smart and fitfully chilling, but puerile St. Ebury school sometimes seems less like a setting than a wallow.
Part mystery, part exploration of adolescent psychology, McAdam’s second novel (Some Great Thing, 2004) revolves around the disappearance of a teenaged girl from an elite Canadian boarding school.
Handsome, easygoing, effortlessly self-assured Julius is the charmed son of an American diplomat. His romance with the beautiful Fallon (Fall for short) provokes the envy of classmates, especially awkward, cerebral Noel, his senior-year roommate. Thrown together by circumstance, the boys develop an ad hoc friendship, and Noel becomes a confidant for the besotted Julius. When Julius, confined after a prank, enlists his roommate as a romantic go-between, Noel’s fascination with the golden couple metastasizes into obsession. Then, just before winter vacation, Fall goes missing. It takes a while for her disappearance to make ripples beyond the cloistered world of the St. Ebury School, but eventually the police are summoned and suspicion falls on the roommates. In the novel’s second half we see both boys’ self-mythologies implode. The story is told mainly in their voices: Noel’s chilly, careful narrative contrasts with his roommate’s bubbly, almost aggressively superficial stream of consciousness. Noel’s sections have flashes of William Trevor–like darkness and insight, and the plot does eventually build momentum, but the police investigation of Fall’s disappearance is oddly halfhearted and low-key, a circumstance that serves the plot more than the mandates of law enforcement.
Smart and fitfully chilling, but puerile St. Ebury school sometimes seems less like a setting than a wallow.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59643-220-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead.
An Easter-themed board-book parody of the traditional nursery rhyme.
Unfortunately, this effort is just as sugary and uninspired as The Itsy Bitsy Snowman, offered by the same pair in 2015. A cheerful white bunny hops through a pastel world to distribute candy and treats for Easter but spills his baskets. A hedgehog, fox, mouse, and various birds come to the bunny’s rescue, retrieving the candy, helping to devise a distribution plan, and hiding the eggs. Then magically, they all fly off in a hot air balloon as the little animals in the village emerge to find the treats. Without any apparent purpose, the type changes color to highlight some words. For very young children every word is new, so highlighting “tiny tail” or “friends” makes no sense. Although the text is meant to be sung, the words don't quite fit the rhythm of the original song. Moreover, there are not clear motions to accompany the text; without the fingerplay movements, this book has none of the satisfying verve of the traditional version.
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5621-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“It’s wise to stay clear / Of the dangerous cobra / All months of the year, / Including Octobra.” But it wouldn’t be wise to stay clear of Florian’s latest poetry collection, sixth in his successful series of witty poems and paintings about creatures of all sorts (Mammalabilia: Poems and Paintings, 2000, etc.). This volume includes 21 short poems about reptiles and amphibians, including common creatures such as the bullfrog and the box turtle and more exotic specimens such as the komodo dragon and the red-eyed tree frog. Teachers will like the way the rhyming poems integrate into elementary science lessons, imparting some basic zoological facts along with the giggles, and kids will love the poems because they’re clever and funny in a style reminiscent of Ogden Nash, full of wordplay and sly humor. Florian’s impressionistic full-page illustrations are done in watercolors on primed, brown paper bags, often offering another layer of humor, as in the orange newt reading the Newt News on the cover. A first choice for the poetry shelves in all libraries, this collection is toadally terrific. (Poetry. 4-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202591-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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