Droll farce yields to intriguing mystery, leaving the seams between them showing
When an overbearing headmistress and her odious brother drop dead, seven Victorian schoolgirls decide to run their school without adult interference.
It’s an ordinary Sunday dinner at Saint Ethelreda’s School for Young Ladies until Mrs. Plackett and Mr. Aldous Godding choke on their veal and fall over, dead as a pair of unpleasant doornails. All of the seven students at Saint Ethelreda’s, from Dull Martha to Dour Elinor, are horrified at the notion of their inevitable separation. Once they tell the authorities about Mrs. Plackett’s death, surely they will all be sent back home to their dreadful families and shunted off to far worse schools. All seems lost until Smooth Kitty asks the others, what if they just don’t tell the authorities about their headmistress’s untimely demise? What follows is classic farce, as the young ladies spend the rest of that evening desperately hiding the corpses and their headmistress’s absence from an unprecedented stream of callers. Stout Alice is disguised as Mrs. Plackett, Disgraceful Mary Jane initiates the garden gravedigging, and Pocked Louise helpfully adopts a puppy. A third of the way through the novel, the breakneck shenanigans abruptly settle, becoming merely the backdrop of a fairly classic drawing-room mystery. The young ladies are charming and their problem-solving ingenious, though the epithets used to describe them—it is never “Roberta,” always “Dear Roberta”—get old very quickly.
Droll farce yields to intriguing mystery, leaving the seams between them showing . (Farce/mystery. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59643-956-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Sophisticated fare for readers in search of a few more Unfortunate Events. Well endowed with classic horror-tale tropes from creepy woods, old curses and creaky mansions to a lunatic asylum with a strange staff and an ichorous pool with uncanny properties, the community of Spooking looms over a modern suburb, seemingly ripe for Development. Strewing broad hints that, except for protagonist Joy, who is ablaze with a massive case of Early Adolescence, and her wholly normal little brother Byron, few if any of Spooking’s residents are quite Who (or What) They Seem, Bracegirdle reprises the general arc of prequel Fiendish Deeds (2008)—subjecting an ominous new scheme of hapless villain Phipps to turn the asylum into an exclusive spa to messy and (more through suggestion than overt detail) gruesome treatment. As observed by the largely uncomprehending Joy, the antics and infatuations of the adults supply most of the comedy, but the thoroughly gothic setting and a madcap climax will keep younger audiences entertained, too. (Comic horror. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3418-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sophy and her mother live in an isolated Cambodian village. When the numbers man—the man who counts how many people live in the village—arrives, he realizes that her father has recently died, and noticing how she gazes at his sneakers, he decides to give her a gift: running shoes. He doesn’t know it, but now Sophy can go to school, even though it is a long journey from her village, because the shoes will protect her. After her mother gives permission, Sophy takes off—and meets with a group of male students who are not very happy to find a girl in their midst. But the teacher is kind and after a running race proves her prowess, Sophy is accepted. When the numbers man returns the following year, Sophy has learned enough to give him a gift of her own. Straightforward and accessible, this tale provides a memorable picture both of life in Cambodia and of one girl’s struggle to obtain an education. Gaillard’s realistic illustrations add a quiet, lyrical touch. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-58089-175-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
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