An excellent translation of a contemporary European classic.
A young girl uncovers startling secrets.
Astrid has long enjoyed being the only child in the small Norwegian village of Glimmerdal. The energetic 10-year-old spends her days skiing along the hillside and sledding through town, bringing laughter wherever she goes. Astrid’s got lovely parents and an adoring godfather, Gunnvald, and doesn’t want a single thing to change. Of course change does come, first in the form of a new family with children moving to Glimmerdal, and then a mysterious woman whom everyone else in town seems to know already. Astrid, resourceful as ever, digs for answers. Readers looking for a warm and cozy tale to bundle up with on the couch during the winter months will find plenty to enjoy here. Parr’s original Norwegian text, published in 2009, has been compared to Heidi and Pippi Longstocking, and Puzey’s translation effortlessly conveys that sense for American readers. The warm tone and endearing characters do most of the heavy lifting here: Parr’s narrative is structured loosely and paced leisurely. Some younger readers accustomed to the snappy rhythms of American middle-grade fiction may feel an itch here and there for a quicker pace, but for those inclined to hang out with Astrid and Gunnvald—and this includes adults in the mood for a cheery change of pace—the rewards are plentiful. Glimmerdal’s population is evidently all white.
An excellent translation of a contemporary European classic. (Fiction. 8-12, adult)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0017-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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