Following Heads or Tails (1994), more stories about the life of the Henry family on Barbados. Jack, the 13-year-old with the experience of an 8-year-old and the wisdom of an 80-year-old, describes his family with an indissoluble blend of mockery and admiration. His voice is completely original as he relates the adventures of his family in a colorful, entertaining style, but the themes are far from comic. In one, the father forces the other Henrys to face their worst fears; in another, Jack cuts off a wart, and gets blood poisoning; in a third, Jack falls in love—and is ridiculed by everyone, including himself. The comedy arises from the tone in which all this is told: The narrative is literally dripping with sarcasm, full of the sharp detail and observation that only dark humor produces. (" 'Come quick,' Pete said and pranced up and down on his toes as if he had to pee. 'Dad's drowning.' "). This unacknowledged split between Jack's funny narration and the dismaying events he details gives the book a peculiar depth. There's nothing black-and-white about the characters, not because they are described as internally complex, but because they are constantly viewed from different angles—funny in one light, unpleasant in another. Readers will laugh out loud, but the aftershocks are not heartwarming. Indeed, by his insistent cheer, Jack conveys the tragic aspects of life much more forcefully than any sentimental treatment could. (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-33657-1
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A well-loved author brings together, on a Maine vacation, characters from two of her books. Peter's parents have assured him that though Sheila ("The Great") Tubman and her family will be nearby, they'll have their own house; but instead, they find a shared arrangement in which the two families become thoroughly intertwined—which suits everyone but the curmudgeonly Peter. Irrepressible little brother Fudge, now five, is planning to marry Sheila, who agrees to babysit with Peter's toddler sister; there's a romance between the grandparents in the two families; and the wholesome good fun, including a neighborhood baseball game featuring an aging celebrity player, seems more important than Sheila and Peter's halfhearted vendetta. The story's a bit tame (no controversies here), but often amusingly true to life and with enough comic episodes to satisfy fans.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-525-44672-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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