The author of What a Truly Cool World (1999) twangs his silly bone again, producing six fables that are well south of serious, though carrying kernels of truth. Several are "lost and found" tales, as in "Ellen the Eagle Finds Her Place in the World," modeling for the government—because she's afraid of heights. There's Bernard the bee, who unexpectedly finds true love even though he's lost his buzz, and "Anna the Angry Ant," who finds herself with a permanent stomach ache after losing her temper and swallowing an anaconda. Chollat makes her US debut with a set of stylized, postmodern illustrations whose bright hues are picked up by colored words or lines in the facing text. Lester's distinctive way with words is fully in evidence here—“What would a bee be without a buzz? My goodness! A bee without a buzz would be a been. A bee without a buzz would be a used-to-be bee who was now a been. So Bernard buzzed his buzz a couple of times and was happy to see that his buzz was as buzzy as it always was"—and he closes each tale with a double moral: "1. You are what you think you are and not what others think you aren't. 2. When you're in Vermont, WATCH OUT FOR THE ALLIGATOR." There's a lot of text on these oversized pages, much of it asking for a sophisticated comprehension. So the format is deceptively young-looking and might throw off the child who could understand the jokes. Readers who find Aesop's fables stodgy and Jon Scieszka's incomprehensible might want to have a go at these. (Illustrated fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-48913-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Artie’s first day at Ardmore Middle School starts off badly: Before he even leaves the house he’s fallen out of bed, zapped...
A preteen horror take on Groundhog Day.
Artie’s first day at Ardmore Middle School starts off badly: Before he even leaves the house he’s fallen out of bed, zapped himself plugging in the cellphone charger and been squirted with syrup by his little brother. It gets so radically worse that by the afternoon he’s received the dismaying news that a gang has been dispatched to beat him up on the way home at the Principal’s request. Before that can happen, to his astonishment, he’s suddenly waking up in bed. Was it a dream? Hard to say, because again he falls out of bed, zaps himself, gets squirted and goes on to another first day that is nearly the same but even more disastrous. And then again. Each round gets shorter but weirder as Artie’s struggles to head off catastrophes he knows are coming lead to bizarre accidents, wild chases, scary discoveries in the school’s dank, dark basement and, at last, a truly memorable encounter with an oversized custodian who disintegrates into a pack of weasels. After that, it’s almost a letdown when Stine explains Artie’s misadventures with a logical and obvious revelation.Pub Date: July 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-64954-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty
Homeless orphan Valli is always friendly, if amoral.
When Valli can, she sneaks glimpses at Bollywood dances, learns a little reading or throws rocks at the monsters—people without faces or fingers—who live on the other side of the tracks. Most of the time, however, she picks up coal. Sick of beatings, hunger and coal, Valli hides on a passing truck, fleeing her life of poverty for a life of… well, more poverty, but also more excitement. On the Kolkata streets she lives day-to-day. Constantly starving, she contentedly begs and steals; when she has something she doesn't need (a bit of extra soap, a blanket), she passes it on to somebody else. When Valli tries her luck begging from kind Dr. Indra, she learns she has leprosy, just like the faceless monsters back home. It takes some time, but Valli learns to accept help from the women who offer it to her: Dr. Indra, who works at the leprosy hospital; Neeta, a sales manager with leprosy who teaches Valli how to make pie charts; Laxmi, a teenager who's been burned. An emphasis on Christmas falls discordant, but Valli’s journey from stubborn solitude to member of a community is richly fulfilling.
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty . (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55498-134-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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