The disaffection Nell develops after his parents and siblings are killed in a car crash probably helps him through the next disaster, as his grandparents and then, it seems, everyone in the world is killed off by a plague that first hits the aged and then works down. Nell experiences the one-day fever but somehow escapes the hideous second stage, a swift premature aging process; from then on he goes methodically about the business of survival, finally tracking down two girls—gentle, passive Lucy with whom he comes to a romantic understanding, and hostile Billie, her companion, who bitterly resents his homing in. Christopher is well known for his post-Disaster science fantasies, but this totally credible adventure, set in a very immediate future, requires no imaginative reorientation. Most impressively, Christopher repeatedly confounds one's expectations of an easy out. The plagueorphaned children whom Nell takes in early on, and who seem destined to break through his protective numbness, age and die before his eyes; the other survivor, probably around his own age, who sends out his address by balloon, turns out to have hanged himself shortly before Nell's arrival—a real jolt, this, but one that shocks Nell into seeking others; and when Billie at last lures him away and tries to kill him, Nell and Lucy pass up the chance to get off on their own, instead taking her back into their lives despite the likely risk and certain aggravation. Of Nell's experiences and encounters only the acquiescent Lucy seems the figment of an adolescent male (and pretty weak) imagination; the rest is compellingly chilly, and real as tomorrow's breakfast.
Pub Date: March 20, 1978
ISBN: 0140373888
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1978
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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