Overly sentimental, this feel-good story may leave adult readers wanting.
A city family discovers the kindness of country strangers in its search for a lost puppy.
Since the subtitle of New York Times senior editor Elder’s pet memoir alludes to happy endings, it’s hardly giving the plot away to say that her prodigal subject—a small, red-haired toy poodle—was eventually brought back to the fold. Much of the book chronicles the logistical and emotional struggles of the four-day search-and-rescue operation that Elder, her husband and her son initiated in and around Ramsey, N.J., immediately following Huck’s untimely escape from Elder’s sister’s home. During that trying extended weekend, these Manhattanites experienced the warmth of countless Bergen County residents as many joined them in bracing against the chill of March to seek out the lost Huck. “We learned a lot about the heart of a small town and the extraordinary level of concern one stranger can show another,” writes the author. “We learned a lot about ourselves, too, about tenacity and grit and our devotion to one another.” It’s fairly standard Dewey-type fare, but what makes her account peculiar is the framing. Elder acknowledges that “Huck is a part of the chapter of my life titled cancer,” but she prefaces the minutely detailed search and reunion with young Huck with a jarringly vague gloss of her diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer just prior to Huck’s arrival in her home. Peppered with tedious encyclopedic descriptions of numerous would-be rescuers, this journalistic tale somehow overlooks salient details of her treatment and reckoning with a life-threatening illness. Such sanitization makes the memoir most appropriate for a YA audience.
Overly sentimental, this feel-good story may leave adult readers wanting.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7679-3134-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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