From Wilson (The Suitcase Kid, 1997, etc.), a lightweight British import that is a telling study of twindom's trials and tribulations. Doing their best to make everyone miserable in the process, ten-year-old identical twins Ruby and Garnet reluctantly adapt to changes in their family and themselves in this revealing double journal. As close in other ways as twins can be, Ruby is otherwise as rude and bossy as Garnet is shy and wimpy. Ruby doesn't like Rose, the new woman in their father Richard's life, nor his decision to move to a small town and open a bookshop, nor their new teacher, nor their classmates, so Garnet trails along on a campaign of pranks and bad behavior, offering only token resistance. Then the twins, at Ruby's instigation, take an entrance exam for an expensive boarding school and only Garnet is offered a scholarship. Wilson works with a broad brush, exaggerating the differences in the twins' personalities, and endowing Rose and Richard with inhuman funds of patience. While readers will spend most of the book wondering why Ruby wasn't strangled long ago, she takes the impending separation from her twin so much harder than Garnet that she becomes a tragic figure. In the end, the two part with hugs and tears, and start making new friends almost immediately. Their alternating accountsRuby's long and chatty, Garnet's short but eloquentare illustrated with simple black-and-white drawings, each twin done by a different artist, to no distinguishable effect. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32312-3
Page Count: 185
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
An outstanding intergenerational tale that captures a slice of life in contemporary China. Mei-Mei and her grandfather get up early, breakfast together, board a bicycle, and travel congested streets to a local park. There they hang the cage of their song bird in a tree, amid dozens of others, so the birds can sing together. They greet their friends, practice tai-chi, have a jar of tea, and then ride home through the market, where they get four crisp pancakes wrapped in a sheet of newspaper. The soft watercolor illustrations capture the loving relationship between grandfather and granddaughter, and provide a glimpse of a busy Chinese town, where ancient terra-cotta roofed buildings are juxtaposed with farm animals on the way to market, and details from the family kitchen are contrasted with streets bustling with cars, trucks, bicycles, and vendors. The book is useful for multicultural studies, but shines as a warm family story. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8075-5039-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Amanda (Boom Town, 1998, etc.) returns for her third adventure, this time standing in for her mother who has returned to the East to care for her ailing mother. Amanda figures she’s more than up to the challenge of housekeeping for her father, three older brothers, and Baby Nathan. Determined to do it all herself, Amanda spurns her father’s suggestion to seek help—even though dinners are getting progressively less appealing. Baby Nathan proves to be her true undoing, and finally Amanda solicits help, realizing that trouble shared is trouble halved. By the time her mother returns (an easy trip, apparently, to the other coast and back), Amanda is ready for an extended break, and readers will be, too. This story is a flat, humorless extension of the last two books; Baby Nathan’s shenanigans are predictable, forgettable, and woefully tame. Smith’s watercolors inject some spunk, but it may be time for Amanda’s adventures to come to a rest. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30149-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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