Evanescently entertaining.
The prospect of a blended family does not appeal to a pair of 13-year-olds.
When eighth grade classmates Charlotte and Lily are thrown together on a beach vacation by their dating parents—Charlotte’s newly divorced father and Lily’s longtime single mother—they overcome their antipathy long enough to plot against their parents’ relationship. Charlotte, whose footloose, pretty mother is away on tour with a young rock star, has been queen of her small domain at school and longs to connect with a group of high schoolers she sees at the beachside cafe (the ones Lily thinks of as “hoodlums”); Lily, a reader and science-fiction fan, is one of the many whom Charlotte and her friends have deemed in dire need of a makeover. Though the two couldn’t be more different, their plan—pretending to get along and finding alternative romantic partners for their parents—unites them. Kaye’s thin but earnest plot may not offer the most original or robust telling, but the setup—the clash and conflict among children in families on the verge of a merger—is perennially appealing. The eventual rapprochement and resolution are satisfactory, if a bit pat. Little detail is given about the protagonists’ racial or ethnic identities, though the descriptions of the older teens is, by contrast, oddly specific.
Evanescently entertaining. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4612-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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
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
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