Comical and whimsical, with a lovable and precocious narrator.
A well-traveled, formerly home-schooled girl faces challenges in attending school for the first time.
Finding the silver lining in every situation has been the hallmark of Joy Applebloom’s personality. In Valentine’s series opener, Joy is moving “home” to the U.K., somewhere she’s never been, along with her 13-year-old sister, Claude, and her mum and dad. They’re leaving Zanzibar to go live with their injured granddad, a big change after being in places like Mumbai, Hanoi, and Mexico City. Granddad is settled in his ways, but slowly Joy figures out ways to spend time with him and even make him laugh. When she enters formal schooling for the very first time as a 10-year-old, despite being “genuinely, properly all geared up for it,” she struggles to cope in this “silver-lining-free zone,” with its unfamiliar routines and social codes. But Joy, who’s cued white, finally meets a British Jamaican boy named Benny; they bond over the beauty of the old oak tree growing in the playground, which gives her hope again. But when the oak is threatened by plans to build a new school, Joy and Benny are galvanized into action. Told from Joy’s first-person point of view, the storytelling is clever and funny while dealing with age-appropriate challenges. Lefevre’s clean and imaginative black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout this relatable and charming story.
Comical and whimsical, with a lovable and precocious narrator. (All About Joy) (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781684649228
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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