Filled with both rollicking escapades and poignant moments, Parr’s notable tale portrays a young boy’s heartfelt...
Next-door neighbors in a small Norwegian town share mishaps and mischief.
Spanning a year in their lives, this lively tale details the escapades of Trille and his neighbor, Lena. Through the voice of pragmatic 9-year-old Trille, Parr deftly portrays her narrator’s earnestness and Lena’s insouciance as together the friends carry out their schemes with often humorous and occasionally regrettable results. Though they live in quiet Mathildewick Cove, the friends’ dynamic imaginations lead to several exhilarating—and a few precarious—escapades, which range from seafaring ventures to a mountainside helicopter rescue. Amid these antics, Parr subtly reveals Trille’s and Lena’s innermost worries. Although Trille considers the irrepressible Lena his best friend, he wonders whether she reciprocates those feelings. And beneath Lena’s vibrant exterior, she longs for a father, a dilemma that she attempts to resolve in her indefatigable, quirky fashion. Through several well-nuanced characters, Parr delineates Trille’s extended family support and reveals the familial closeness that Trille so cherishes. Trille's relationships with his grandfather and his beloved “Auntie Granny” celebrate these multigenerational connections. With simply rendered illustrations that zero in on key elements of the story, Forrester extends the charm of this tale.
Filled with both rollicking escapades and poignant moments, Parr’s notable tale portrays a young boy’s heartfelt appreciation of family and friends. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7281-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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