Clearly tale-spinning comes easily to Joan Aiken, who is adept at retracing traditional patterns with a knowing contemporary air, but most of these 13 entries (12 short stories and a poem) seem mere imitations of sentimental fairy tales, wonder tales, or whatever; and the evident fact that Aiken's stance is more sophisticated than her models' doesn't add dimension. In the sentimental vein, the lollybird of the title story is a weaver's overworked assistant who flies off to teach its now bereft master a lesson; elsewhere an old man gives his life for a loyal dog's ghost; another giving tree gives her all as a prince's foster mother; and a music-loving cat enlists the mice and birds of Venice to save an ailing, imprisoned (human) composer. Other stories, more purely in fun, deal with a king whose "backward" memory of past Sundays is replaced by a "forward" memory of future ones; with a sailor who escapes a shrewish wife for a charming mermaid; and—for those who can take the barrage of bubbles—with "how a lost football team came to be connected with the seven thoughtful magpies of Rumbury Cemetery, and what that had to do with John Sculpin's fondness for Carpathian Puff Pastry, and his mother's for auction sales, and how his cousin Sue and her pet carp came into the business, not to mention the ferocious Count Gradko and a cloud shaped like a polar bear." Deft, inventive—but only exercises.
Pub Date: April 7, 1978
ISBN: 0224013327
Page Count: 223
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Weisberger writes with humor and authority, but her plot circles like a whirlpool—and by the time Andrea’s ready to face...
A junior assistantship to the editor of the world’s top fashion magazine (“The job a million girls would die for”) provides endless fodder for a one-note but on-the-money kiss-and-tell debut.
Andy, or, as her boss from hell calls her: “Ahn-dre-ah,” harbors dreams of writing for The New Yorker, but her luck runs out—or runs high, depending on your priorities—when her first job interview lands her at Runway magazine, beholden to Miranda Priestly, “solely responsible for anticipating her needs and accommodating them.” Intelligent, sarcastic and without a smidgen of interest in fashion, Andrea quickly learns the Runway culture, from the necessity of being tall, emaciated, slavish, and half-naked in winter to the perks of town cars, shopping bags filled with designer duds, and the promise of any job after one year of servitude. A few weeks of dealing with the insensitive, sadistic and imperious Miranda leave our heroine on the verge of abdicating, but before long she’s joining her colleagues in “the classic Runway Paranoid Turnaround . . . scrambling to negate whatever blasphemy is uttered” about the divine Miranda.” Outside of work, Andrea has a perfectly nice socially conscious boyfriend from her college days at Brown, a best-friend-slash-roommate with a drinking problem who’s getting her doctorate at Columbia, a loving family in Connecticut, and no time for any of them as she races to retrieve Miranda’s French bulldog puppy from the vet, hire a nanny for her children, make 12 trips in stiletto heels to Starbucks for her coffee in between sorting her dirty dry cleaning. It’s only a 14-hour day! Ultimately, of course, everything explodes, and in the end, of course, righteousness prevails.
Weisberger writes with humor and authority, but her plot circles like a whirlpool—and by the time Andrea’s ready to face some hard choices, it’s difficult to care. Her exhaustion is contagious. (N.B: Weisberger, this season’s buzz of the town, was an assistant to Vogue editrix Anna Wintour—read: Miranda Priestly—giving this putative roman-à-clef an added splash of juice.)Pub Date: April 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50926-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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