A well-intentioned manual that offers uneven advice.
Seven personified character traits teach lessons about respect and other values in this debut children’s guide written by a girl and her grandmother.
Tyler and Greer’s book aims “to promote good manners, positive character traits, and a safe environment for children.” Rarely for such works, Tyler is a child herself, age 9 at the time of writing, giving her perhaps an edge with her peers. The “WORLD FIGHTERS FOR CHARACTER TRAITS” consist of seven human members—Joyful, Love, May, Pixie, Zach, Nikki, and DJG—plus one animal, Candy Cane Cat. They all appear young, somewhat in the chibi style of Japanese illustration, with oversized heads, huge eyes (when not winking or covered by an eye patch), and tiny limbs. They have a range of skin tones, hair colors, and clothing/accessories and a few oddities, like Nikki’s fangs and DJG’s eye patch and face mask (unexplained). Although there’s some differentiation, the team’s traits tend to overlap. Love is considerate; Joyful is well-mannered; and Pixie is helpful. May is compassionate; Joyful is caring; and Nikki is supportive. Zach actually joins the team after the group’s first mission, which transforms him from a bully and teaches him compassion. Two other operations teach respect and integrity. The timely book’s values are stated clearly, and the human cast is wonderfully diverse. But the transformation process raises some questions. In Zach’s case, Candy Cane Cat recommends giving him a “love shower,” which works instantly. It’s an appealing thought but sets the unlikely expectation that changing someone’s behavior is easy and fast and also suggests that stopping bullying is up to kids. Usually experts recommend getting adults to intervene, reserving kindness for the child being bullied. Respect and integrity are instilled with similar ease: for example, “I will transform the students….The students are transformed.” Another goal is to teach roots, prefixes, and suffixes of values-based vocabulary, but this sometimes stumbles on inconsistencies, such as defining “authored” as “With, together, joint,” which actually defines the prefix “co.” And “author” shouldn’t include the suffix “-ed.”
A well-intentioned manual that offers uneven advice.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4897-1849-5
Page Count: 34
Publisher: LifeRichPublishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fans of Cameron’s Huey and Julian stories (More Stories Huey Tells, 1997, etc.) are in for a treat as Gloria, their friend from those tales, gets a book of her own and graciously allows the two brothers to share it . In the first tale, Gloria makes a wonderful card for her mother, but the wind blows it away and it ends up in the cage of a cantankerous parrot. Thanks to Mr. Bates, Huey and Julian’s dad, the day is saved, as is the burgeoning friendship that Gloria and the boys have struck up with new neighbor Latisha in the story, “The Promise.” In another story, Gloria has to deal with a huge problem—fractions—and this time it’s her dad who helps her through it. Mr. Bates proves helpful again when the group trains an “obsessed” puppy, while Gloria’s mother is supportive when Gloria is unintentionally hurt by her three best friends. The stories are warm and funny, as Gloria, a spunky kid who gets into some strange predicaments, finds out that her friends and wise, loving adults are good to have around when trouble beckons. Great fun, with subtly placed, positive messages that never take center stage. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: March 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-32670-3
Page Count: 93
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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