The story perfectly captures Asaf's transition from a love of objects to a thirst for knowledge that goes beyond physical...
This beautiful, resonant story about the way we leave behind childish things (but never really abandon them) delivers a specific, potent experience unusual even for the best iPad apps.
Asaf, a bespectacled boy who is turning 13, is obsessed with art and antiques, and they soon clutter his room. When his family moves, his parents take the opportunity to remove the clutter and urge Asaf to keep a neat space. In true teenage fashion, Asaf wallows in grief and drama over the change, but in time he learns that his growing mind can store more objects (albeit imaginary) and ideas than the biggest bedroom ever could. The evocative, painted artwork throughout the story is dark and moody, which makes the occasional flashes of humor all the more enjoyable. At one point, Asaf imagines a ramshackle cottage surrounded by fearsome bears... and one silly chicken, standing upright. He ends up writing a short story featuring the clucking creature. Interactive features enhance the story rather than distract from it. A sink pours out hot and cold words from two faucets instead of water ("Interest" / "Worry"; "Pleasure" / "Contempt"). A clothesline of wiggling shadows hangs across Asaf's bedroom. "He stepped on shadows to snag them... then strung them across his ceiling with imaginary pegs and imaginary twine." Touching the shadows makes them spookily float toward the reader and disappear.
The story perfectly captures Asaf's transition from a love of objects to a thirst for knowledge that goes beyond physical things. The app shows a remarkable sensitivity to this volatile moment and does it with style and grace. (iPad storybook app. 8-13)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Slap Happy Larry
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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