by Mary Hogan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2007
Cosmopolitan aunt to the rescue! Fourteen-year-old Ruthie feels stifled by her tiny Delaware town, her frumpy and overprotective mother and the fact that her father was an unknown sperm donor. When she falls head-over-heels in love with lifelong friend Perry, she knows mom can’t help. In secret, hardly breathing, she telephones glamorous Aunt Marty, mom’s estranged sister who writes magazine love columns and is an official expert on men. Ruthie being smitten with rich Aunt Marty is at least as important as the tumultuous relationship between the adult sisters and Ruthie’s pursuit of Perry. Hogan excels at young tenderness, such as Perry spooning Ruthie’s foot, and an enchanted day they spend together in D.C. Mom gets a bum rap (caricatured confusingly as both a dowdy ’50s throwback and an intentional single mom) while heroine Marty’s high heels, manicures and diet examples (appetizer portions only) far outshine any depth that Hogan attempts. Fun, especially for readers who thrill at secret tips like “[a]lways wear silk underpants.” (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-084108-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperTempest
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
Share your opinion of this book
More by Mary Hogan
BOOK REVIEW
by Mary Hogan
BOOK REVIEW
by Mary Hogan
BOOK REVIEW
by Mary Hogan
by Sarah Darer Littman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2010
The exodus of the Jews is breaking Dani’s heart: the exodus from Buenos Aires, that is. The 2001 Argentinian currency crisis has destroyed Buenos Aires’s economy, and all of Dani’s friends are moving to Israel or the United States. Dani’s own family, devastated by poverty and her father’s overwhelming depression, is headed to New York. There, in a wealthy suburb, Dani struggles to make friends in a huge, English-speaking public high school. Dani’s high-school problems follow a checklist of issues: autistic friend, mean popular girl, long-distance boyfriend hiding his new romance. The supporting characters act mostly as set dressing—from the bully who vanishes as soon as he has provoked another character’s redemption to the friend from ESL class who has no nationality or history of her own—and the comforting solutions are too pat. Enjoyable enough, so keep this on the shelf to fight misconceptions about terrorism, poverty, immigration and Jews—but don’t expect readers to come begging for more. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-15144-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
Share your opinion of this book
More by Sarah Darer Littman
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Elizabeth Levy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2000
PLB 0-7868-2427-1 The content and concerns of Levy’s latest is at odds with the young reading level and large type size, which may prevent this novel’s natural audience of middle schoolers from finding a fast and funny read. In sixth grade, Rebecca broke her friend Scott’s toe at a dance. Now, in seventh grade, they are partners in a ballroom dance class, and they soon find they dance well together, but that makes Rebecca’s friend Samantha jealous. She gives a party during which spin-the-bottle is played, kissing Scott and then bullying him into being her boyfriend. While Rebecca deals with her mixed feelings about all this, she also has a crush on her dance instructor. Levy (My Life as a Fifth-Grade Comedian, 1997, etc.) has great comedic timing and writes with a depth of feeling to make early adolescent romantic travails engaging; she also comes through on the equally difficult feat of making ballroom dancing appealing to young teens. The obsession with kissing, pre-sexual tension, and sensuality of the dancing will be off-putting or engrossing, depending entirely on readers’ comfort levels with such conversations in real life as well as on the page. Precocious preteens will find that this humorously empathetic take on budding romance is just right. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-0498-X
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
Share your opinion of this book
More by Andrea Balis
BOOK REVIEW
by Andrea Balis & Elizabeth Levy ; illustrated by Tim Foley
BOOK REVIEW
by Andrea Balis & Elizabeth Levy ; illustrated by Tim Foley
BOOK REVIEW
by Paula Danziger ; Bruce Coville ; Elizabeth Levy ; illustrated by Anthony Lewis
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.