Strains to fit what feels like a forcibly imposed theme but should nevertheless find fans.
Lighthearted verses, many presented in graphic format, feature siblings, monsters, wild creatures, flights of fancy, and daring deeds.
In breezy, loose-jointed rhymes, Taylor moves freely between quotidian and fantasy settings. A sibling’s indignant rejection of a suggestion that little brother Max is “really slow” (“Others see what Max can’t do / but I see what he can”), for instance, is followed by a ballad of a lad so indecisive that he spends 100 years in front of a vending machine and a teacher’s gleeful revelation that she has hairy “monster feet.” The titular theme, which extends to specific labels for many of the poems and a “Feeling Index” at the end, not only includes non-emotions such as “Peer Pressure,” but also arbitrarily assigns just one feeling even to entries that contain several…and sometimes getting it wrong to boot. Still, in a mix of lavishly detailed sequential panels and enveloping single-page illustrations, Dorman catches all sorts of fantastical creatures, joining a large, racially diverse cast of children (including one young wheelchair user) in brisk action. Readers will find them all stimulating company—even a “humdrum” dragon bored with blasting castles who decides to take up a more peaceable hobby (knitting) and the Laziest Lady Ever: “But some people may argue my talent’s a bore / since I’ve laid here so long my face stuck to the floor.”
Strains to fit what feels like a forcibly imposed theme but should nevertheless find fans. (Poetry. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781639933075
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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