A young Scottish orphan suffers doubts about the completeness of her acceptance into her adopted family in this pointed but comforting novel, set in the middle of the 19th century. After her mother dies in a street accident, four-year-old Elspet is taken in by the Gordons, the large family of her mother's childhood friend, and formally adopted two years later when her sailor father dies at sea. Having lost her only daughter to diphtheria, Ailsa Gordon welcomes Elspet lovingly, but the worm of doubt planted by Elspet's grandfather when he coldly suggests that she be sent to her father's people prevents her from feeling fully secure in the household. Elspet feels bereft again when the Gordons emigrate to the Canadian woods, leaving her cat and beloved matriarch Granny Ross behind, but gains a measure of solace from a new cat, and better yet, a new friend. Elspet's uncertainty years later suggests that she may never be completely free of it—but as long as she never has to look far for evidence that she is loved, her doubts can be allayed. The plot is predictable, and, except for a dreadful sea voyage, Little (His Banner Over Me, 1995, etc.) barely notes the daily details of pioneer life, but Elspet's character is conveyed by a distinct, individual voice, and the manner in which her security is repeatedly shaken by minor remarks or incidents drives home the fragility of her sense of belonging. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87593-7
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
After his grandmother gives him an old riding lawnmower for his summer birthday, this comedy’s 12-year-old narrator putt-putts into a series of increasingly complex and economically advantageous adventures. As each lawn job begets another, one client—persuasive day-trader Arnold Howell—barters market investing and dubious local business connections. Our naïve entrepreneur thus unwittingly acquires stock in an Internet start-up and a coffin company; a capable landscaping staff of 15 and the sponsorship of a hulking boxer named Joseph Powdermilk. There’s a semi-climactic scuffle with some bad guys bent on appropriating the lawn business, but Joey Pow easily dispatches them. If there’s tension here, it derives from the unremitting good news: While the reader may worry that Arnold’s a rip-off artist, Joey Pow will blow his fight, or (at the very least) the parents will go ballistic once clued in—all ends refreshingly well. The most complicated parts of this breezy affair are the chapter titles, which seem lifted from an officious, tenure-track academician’s economics text. Capital! (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: June 12, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-74686-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he’ll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he’s being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate’s, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the “slacker” will be waiting for rescue around the next bend—and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark’s neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen’s or Will Hobbs’s more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain—at length—everyone’s history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy—but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers’ ability to figure out for themselves what’s going on in each character’s life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-82596-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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