A heartfelt but amusing story about the many challenges of growing up
Picking up where Friendship Over (2014) ends, this illustrated diary-style slice-of-life novel tells the continuing story of 10-year-old Celie Valentine Altman, centering on the all-important middle school topics of friendship and family.
The theme of secrets—finding them, keeping them, and the subtle ethics of these decisions—is a strong choice for Celie’s character, as she can’t stand not knowing what’s going on. She’s also willing to break moral boundaries to find out, spying and reading private correspondence. However, when her addled grandmother accidentally sets her sweater on fire, it’s Celie who tries to hide this important secret from her parents, as she fears her beloved grandmother will be taken away. On the friendship front, Celie’s longtime friend, Lula, has a new friend, Violet, and Celie doesn’t understand why Lula is sharing secrets with Violet rather than her. And at home, Celie struggles with her older sister, Jo, interfering with her privacy and insisting that Jo not keep her ice cream date secret from their parents. Although the issues Celie faces—loss of her best friend, conflicts with her sister, concerns about her cognitively compromised grandmother—are major, the story is in no way heavy, as Celie’s skewed perspective and the diary’s clever illustrations add humor and keep the tone light.
A heartfelt but amusing story about the many challenges of growing up . (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62091-777-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
A bit disjointed and episodic, but Tristan is a likable companion.
Tristan’s family has always loved living in New York City, but all that is about to change.
Dad announces that they are moving to a dilapidated, purple house on a hill on the outskirts of the very small town of Petersville in upstate New York. Baby sister Zoe is frightened and confused. Jeanine, two years younger than Tristan and a math genius in gifted and talented classes, is appalled and worried about her educational prospects. Tristan is devastated, for he is a city kid through and through. Because they won’t be starting school for several months, their parents tell Jeanine and Tristan they must complete a project. Jeanine selects a complicated scientific and mathematical study that allows her to remain uninvolved with people. Tristan, who loves to cook, like his chef mom, decides to start a business making and selling the supposedly mind-blowing chocolate-cream doughnuts once famous in Petersville but now no longer made. His business plan leads to adventures, new friends, and a sense of acceptance. Tristan is a charmer; he’s earnest, loving, wistful, and practical, and he narrates his own tale without guile. But he is the only character so well defined—next to him, the supporting cast feels flat. The family is described as Jewish early on, but their Judaism is kept well to the background; the people of Petersville are white by default.
A bit disjointed and episodic, but Tristan is a likable companion. (recipes, business plan, acknowledgements) (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5541-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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