All’s fair in love and war as a young boy conspires to set his mom up with his school principal in this engaging debut from Jones. It’s all out war as far as fifth grader Harvey Ryan is concerned when it comes to stopping his mom from using him as inspiration for her popular children’s stories. Desperate to convince her that art shouldn’t imitate life, at least not his life, Harvey reluctantly agrees to go along with his best friend’s plan to create a diversion (in the guise of a boyfriend) from writing for his mom. The old adage “be careful what you wish for” never seems truer than when Harvey finds his mother’s love life the focus of schoolyard speculation. Newcomer Jones does a neat job tapping into a fifth grader’s mind. Harvey is a typical school age boy: an avid baseball fan and stamp collector, living for recess and summer baseball league. His wry observations on parents and life in general will keep audiences laughing. On the whole, Jones’s characters are well developed; the best friend, Seal, is spunky and smart while the main adults are realistically portrayed. A few secondary characters remain flat, e.g., the oblique references to Seal’s new stepfather (who is always around the house) are rather baffling, and some of the platitudes Harvey spouts end up sounding pedantic and too adult. Despite these few hiccups, the narrative, with a likable protagonist, liberal doses of baseball fever and humor, is strong and appealing to readers both male and female. They’ll be rooting for Henry as he deals with the unexpected curve balls life throws him. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8027-8728-2
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
Using the multiple voices that made Bull Run (1995) so absorbing, Fleischman takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood and a different sort of battle, as bit by bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably diverse group of local residents. It's not an easy victory: Toughened by the experience of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several days relentlessly bulling her way into government offices to get the lot's trash hauled away; others address the lack of readily available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight dumpers; and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and ethnic borders from forming. Still, the garden becomes a place where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown. Readers won't gain any great appreciation for the art and science of gardening from this, but they may come away understanding that people can work side by side despite vastly different motives, attitudes, skills, and cultural backgrounds. It's a worthy idea, accompanied by Pedersen's chapter-heading black-and-white portraits, providing advance information about the participants' races and, here and there, ages. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-027471-9
Page Count: 69
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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