Readers will remain intrigued through the final curtain of this frightfully fun tale.
In Book 3 of the Babysitting Nightmares series, it’s Maggie Anderson’s turn in the spotlight.
Locals say the old Twilight Theater is cursed, but that doesn’t stop the 13-year-old aspiring actress from taking her first babysitting job looking after the daughter of the performer with the role of Lady Macbeth. When unexplainable events occur during rehearsals for the “Scottish play,” Maggie wonders if the theater really is cursed, but she’s hesitant to tell her friends about the unsettling happenings; they might think she’s an incompetent babysitter. Can Maggie handle the ghostly lady in red alone, or will she swallow her pride and ask for help? Observant readers will catch possible foreshadowing for the fourth book. Theater superstitions add intrigue: Never say “Macbeth” aloud in a theater unless you’re performing it; the ghost light must remain on when the theater is dark; and never wish an actor “good luck.” The story itself is engaging, but the handful of emotionless, flat black-and-white illustrations don’t add much value. Knowledge of the previous books isn’t necessary, but readers who like this one will want to pick up the first two for more chills and thrills. Artwork shows Maggie as white. Her friends are casually diverse: Tanya Martinez is implied Latinx; Rebecca Chin is implied Chinese; and Clio Carter-Peterson presents black.
Readers will remain intrigued through the final curtain of this frightfully fun tale. (Thriller. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-15701-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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