Charlie likes her life, and would like everything to stay just as it is, but Fate has other plans for her: a strict new teacher, Miss Beckworth (who insists on calling her Charlotte), a different seat assignment (next to Jamie Edwards), and a mother who’s acting as if her new employer is more than just a friend. As Charlie’s perfect life starts to unravel, she takes refuge in a school project, composing the diary of a Victorian nursery maid named Lottie whose life has roots in Charlotte’s own, e.g, she has a teacher named Miss Worthbeck. Although US readers may be unfamiliar with some of the Briticisms, the tone and content of Charlie’s conversations with her friends and her mother are spot on and instantly recognizable. The small, black-and-white, cartoon-like drawings scattered throughout the book serve as graphic exclamation points for Charlie’s ongoing struggles to master her emotions and adjust to change. Funny, incisive, and true to life, this book introduces a heroine who is easy to root for’she’s a terrific combination of feisty and fragile. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32718-8
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
Picture-book debuts for both author and illustrator result in an affectionate glimpse of intergenerational bonds. Juno loves to get letters in the red-and-blue bordered airmail envelopes that come from his grandmother, who lives in Korea, near Seoul. He cannot read Korean, but he opens the letter anyway, and learns what he can from what his grandmother has sent: a photograph of herself and her new cat, and a dried flower from her garden. When his parents read him the letter, he realizes how much he learned from the other things his grandmother mailed to him. He creates some drawings of himself, his parents, house, and dog, and sends them along with a big leaf from his swinging tree. He gets back a package that includes drawing pencils and a small airplane—the grandmother is coming to visit. The messages that can be conveyed without words, language differences between generations, and family ties across great distances are gently and affectingly handled in this first picture book. The illustrations, done in oil-paint glazes, are beautifully lit; the characters, particularly Grandmother, with her bowl of persimmons, her leafy garden, and her grey bun that looks “like a powdered doughnut,” are charming. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88252-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ramona returns (Ramona Forever, 1988, etc.), and she’s as feisty as ever, now nine-going-on-ten (or “zeroteen,” as she calls it). Her older sister Beezus is in high school, baby-sitting, getting her ears pierced, and going to her first dance, and now they have a younger baby sister, Roberta. Cleary picks up on all the details of fourth grade, from comparing hand calluses to the distribution of little plastic combs by the school photographer. This year Ramona is trying to improve her spelling, and Cleary is especially deft at limning the emotional nuances as Ramona fails and succeeds, goes from sad to happy, and from hurt to proud. The grand finale is Ramona’s birthday party in the park, complete with a cake frosted in whipped cream. Despite a brief mention of nose piercing, Cleary’s writing still reflects a secure middle-class family and untroubled school life, untouched by the classroom violence or the broken families of the 1990s. While her book doesn’t match what’s in the newspapers, it’s a timeless, serene alternative for children, especially those with less than happy realities. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16816-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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