Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage...
This sequel to The Lemonade War (2007), picking up just a few days later, focuses on how the fourth graders take justice into their own hands after learning that the main suspect in the case of the missing lemonade-stand money now owns the latest in game-box technology.
Siblings Evan and Jessie (who skipped third grade because of her precocity) are sure Scott Spencer stole the $208 from Evan’s shorts and want revenge, especially as Scott’s new toy makes him the most popular kid in class, despite his personal shortcomings. Jessie’s solution is to orchestrate a full-blown trial by jury after school, while Evan prefers to challenge Scott in basketball. Neither channel proves satisfactory for the two protagonists (whose rational and emotional reactions are followed throughout the third-person narrative), though, ultimately, the matter is resolved. Set during the week of Yom Kippur, the story raises beginning questions of fairness, integrity, sin and atonement. Like John Grisham's Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer (2010), much of the book is taken up with introducing courtroom proceedings for a fourth-grade level of understanding. Chapter headings provide definitions (“due diligence,” “circumstantial evidence,” etc.) and explanation cards/documents drawn by Jessie are interspersed.
Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage with the characters enough to care about how the justice actually pans out. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-27967-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nuanced depictions of friendship coupled with larger-than-life and fully three-dimensional characters make this delightful...
Allen deftly explores the evolving friendships of Mya Tibbs as she and her Spirit Week partner compete for VIP tickets to the Fall Festival.
Nine-year-old Mya loves cowgirls, the rodeo, and jewelry. The Fall Festival has all her favorite things! She and her new best friend, Naomi, are determined to win the tickets together, but to Mya’s dismay, she draws Mean Connie as her Spirit Week partner. Mya is stuck. Can she keep her promise to help Naomi and be a good partner? Even as she writes a very funny story, Allen neither flatters nor vilifies any characters, instead letting each one grow and make mistakes. As Mya tries to make the best of the situation, she learns that Connie isn’t so mean, that Naomi isn’t so nice, and that she herself can be a better friend. The author showcases different types of friendship throughout the story: as Mya and Naomi fall out, Mya and Connie grow closer; Mya’s brother, Nugget, tries to make friends with a jock, taking his nerdy best friend for granted in the process; and twins Starr and Skye find their sisterly bond tested when their loyalties are torn between Mya and Naomi.
Nuanced depictions of friendship coupled with larger-than-life and fully three-dimensional characters make this delightful book at once thoughtful and a riot to read. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234233-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Skip.
Sibling evacuees find a seemingly abandoned baby on a Yorkshire dale.
At the start of World War II, Lizzie, 10, and her 7-year-old brother, Peter, are sent from Hull into the countryside to be fostered with a nearly catatonic woman named Elsie. When Lizzie brings home an infant she finds lying on a blanket in a field, Elsie springs to life, thinking that the baby is her dead child returned. In actuality, the baby is a Roma child reluctantly left behind by her elder brother, Elijah, when brutish Bill forces him to go rabbit hunting. Within hours, many, including the village policeman, know the identity of the baby—whose mother is frantically searching for her—but all independently decide that the baby should stay with the mentally ill woman. Only young Lizzie seems to have any morality. Adults thwart her until, teamed with Elijah, she pulls off a complicated rescue. Illogical plot points and inconsistent characterization doom this debut. Why would Bill endanger an infant? Why would Elijah agree? And if prejudice toward the Roma is the reason the villagers don't return the baby, why don't they realize the baby herself is one? Blackford writes smoothly in third-person chapters that shift between Lizzie (in which Elijah and his people are called Gypsies) and Elijah (in which they are called Travelers), and her historical details are well-done, but she needs to find a better story.
Skip. (Historical fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-57099-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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