A pleasing, well-judged blend of genres with a good resolution.
In this middle-grade chapter book, private detective Goldilocks takes the case of a man whose missing grandparents have been replaced by bears.
After her father dies, 10-year-old Goldilocks inherits the family business: a private detective agency, which she runs with her cat, Charlotte, in the town of Lick Skillet. Money is tight, the rent is overdue, and she must do her best to avoid the wild-haired Tom the Kid-Snatcher, who rounds up kids without parents for the local orphanage. (He even occasionally kidnaps children who aren’t orphans: “He was that kind of kid-snatcher.”) Goldilocks advertises her detecting services, and her first client is a man named Frank Sims who wants her to find his missing grandparents—and figure out why bears are now living in their house. She’s glad to take the case, but her client’s grandparents live in the nearby Black Forest, which is notoriously full of scary creatures, and she’ll have to pass near the orphanage, besides. In order to avoid some dangers, including Tom, Goldilocks leaves the safe forest path; luckily, she meets Patty, an orphanage escapee who lives in the forest. The girls become friends and partners, solving the mystery and alerting authorities to the orphans’ mistreatment. Trine (Willy Maykit in Space, 2015, etc.) skillfully mixes fairy tales and detective fiction with a coming-of-age story about braving danger to prove oneself. Such elements could easily become rather dark, and Trine does touch on serious issues (including Goldilocks’ money problems), but moments of humor help to lighten the story. For example, Tom’s horse-drawn jail, the Patty Wagon, is named after his most recent captive: “With any luck he’d soon change the name to the Goldie Wagon.” The girl-power message is also appealing. Baykovska (The Nasty Princess, 2018, etc.) provides lighthearted, cartoonish black-and-white pencil illustrations for each chapter head; these offer nice details, such as the fact that Tom bears some resemblance to Struwwelpeter, a character from a well-known 1845 children’s book.
A pleasing, well-judged blend of genres with a good resolution.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73395-892-9
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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PERSPECTIVES
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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