An insightful but also fun tale about a young celebrity taking charge of her life.
Sixteen-year-old Tuesday Greenwood is a teen rock star in Eadie’s young-adult debut.
Tuesday is a beautiful, talented and obedient child star, ordered around by her bipolar stage mother, Constance, and her agent, Uncle Monty. The two adults are Tuesday’s entire, lonely, rule-filled world until the singer meets Zelda—the daughter of Tuesday’s housekeeper and a fellow teenager—who plots to show Tuesday a good time. Horrified by Tuesday’s sheltered and puritanical life, Zelda compels her to re-examine the way her mother pushes her around, spending her daughter’s money and not allowing her any freedom. The two grow close as Tuesday recognizes how isolated she has become, having only her song lyrics for solace. Under Zelda’s influence, Tuesday begins to fight back, demanding to change her image from a clean-cut role model for tweens to an edgy rocker who sings about harsh, personal conflicts. As Constance plans for Tuesday to sing a new, wholesome song at a prom, Zelda becomes even more important as a supportive friend who encourages the young star to think for herself. The singer then meets Brady Paul, a good-looking boy at the high school where she will be performing, and she realizes that, with Zelda by her side, she can discover all kinds of new ways to get what she wants. Written in a light, easy style, Tuesday’s story of emotional emancipation is one that any teenager can appreciate. Eadie’s work stands out from the usual teen novel: It doesn’t glamorize Tuesday’s celebrity life but highlights the loneliness it brings. The protagonist is a well-drawn, likable heroine whose impossible home life makes her sympathetic.
An insightful but also fun tale about a young celebrity taking charge of her life.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491213704
Page Count: 244
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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