When Sneeze's parents ruin his summer plans to take his latest gizmo to the Invention Convention, and enroll him instead in a summer writing class, he decides to get even by pestering them. He turns this obsession into his class project by producing a book of tested ways to annoy parents. When his classmates want to buy copies, he figures that he can make enough money to go to the convention without his parents. Wardlaw (Seventh-Grade Weirdo, 1992, etc.) works hard to be funny—and often is—but the strain shows occasionally: Sneeze and his friends (Hiccup the hypochondriac, Pierre of the fake French accent, Ace the supercool, etc.) don't become believable—or even likable—until the last 30 pages. The title will hook readers, though, and the ending will satisfy them, while the real list of the 101 ways to bug parents that closes the book is likely to elicit guffaws. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8037-1901-9
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if...
Winning a competitive eating contest is David’s only hope of avoiding being grounded for life after he does something stupid with his mother’s credit card.
Already an avid eater and a fan of the “sport,” David Miller, 14, figures that he’s really going to have to up his game after accidently spending $2,000 in an online auction for what is billed as the very hot-dog half that cost pro eater Jooky Garafalo last year’s Nathan’s Famous contest. Fortunately, local pizzeria Pigorino’s is sponsoring a competition at the Iowa State Fair with a $5,000 first prize. Unfortunately, David will have to beat out not only a roster of gifted amateurs to make and win the finals, but also a pair of professionals—notably the renowned but unscrupulous El Gurgitator. As much gourmet as gourmand, David not only vividly chronicles awe-inspiring gustatory feats as he gears up and passes through qualifiers, but describes food with unseemly intensity: “Disks of pepperoni shimmer and glisten on a sea of molten mozzarella.” Even better, though, is the easy, natural way he interacts with Mal, a younger brother whose neurological disability (the term “autistic” is banned from family discourse) transforms but does not conceal a rich internal life. Other subplots, such as a developing relationship between David’s longtime friends Hayden (who is evidently white) and Korean-American Cyn, further enrich a tale in which his own tests and his loving, white family’s determined quest to discover what they dub “Mal’s Rules” both result in thrilling, hard-won triumphs.
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if controversial pursuit, “reverse-eating events” and all. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9070-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
A splendidly exciting and accessible historical adventure.
Tory encounters the independence and adventure she longs for in the untamed city of San Francisco in 1849.
Thirteen-year-old narrator Victoria Blaisdell, known to her family as Tory, lives a comfortably privileged life in mid-19th-century Providence, Rhode Island. She is frustrated and constrained by the influence of her maternal aunt, Lavinia, who believes that girls are to take care of boys and should be educated only at home. But when Tory’s father loses his position and wages and decides to seek gold in California, Tory stows away on the ship that will take him and her fretful younger brother, Jacob, on the seven-month journey to San Francisco. There, Tory finds work to keep herself and Jacob going while their father heads off to the gold fields. When Jacob is kidnapped to be a cabin boy for a ship heading out of the Golden Gate, Tory must appeal to her new friend Thad from Maine and to Sam, a wary young black man from Sag Harbor, New York, to help her navigate an underworld of gambling, rogues, and abandoned ships. Sam and Señor Rosales, who runs the cafe near Tory and Jacob’s tent, are the only nonwhite principal characters. Tory is the only girl. Avi evokes Gold Rush–era San Francisco through Tory’s eyes with empathy and clarity while keeping the action lively.
A splendidly exciting and accessible historical adventure. (Historical fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0679-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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