The depth of Lee's concern for the animals is palpable, but her desire to deliver her message undercuts the effectiveness of...
Lee's Dog Lost (2008) was a fictional account of one community’s fear-fueled drive to euthanize every pit bull in town. Following the same formula, here she tackles the problem of feral cats.
The town of Clydesdale has a big problem with stray cats, and citizens are demanding a solution. Billy Reddick has a problem, too. His father, Walter, mistreats both him and his mother and takes out his meanness on the town's homeless cats. When drunk, Walter even uses the cats for target practice. On Billy’s 11th birthday, Walter gives him an air rifle. “That thing will keep down the vermin.” But Billy has a secret—a stray cat he rescued and is hiding from his parents. When Billy discovers that the cat, Conga, is pregnant, he takes her to an abandoned building that is home to many feral cats but then becomes distraught when she goes missing. Will he find her before his father and other angry townsfolk kill her? The story is abundant with stereotypical characters and situations, right down to the oh-so-convenient climax. Though the ending is happy, at least for Conga, the graphic descriptions of animal cruelty, though honest and not gratuitous, may be upsetting to more sensitive readers.
The depth of Lee's concern for the animals is palpable, but her desire to deliver her message undercuts the effectiveness of her storytelling; for nuance, stick with Jerry Spinelli's Wringer (1997). (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-31770-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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SEEN & HEARD
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