Another enjoyable outing with predictable Judy, just like a pleasant visit with an old friend. (Fiction. 6-9)
Judy Moody has an amazing run of good luck, perhaps due to the wonderful lucky coin she’s started carrying.
Imagine winning prize after prize from The Claw—a fishing-for-stuffed-animals arcade game. That’s what happens to Judy with her new lucky penny. The good fortune doesn’t stop there, however. She bowls a prizewinning game at a birthday party, and the tough word she's asked to spell in front of her third-grade class just happens to be posted on the bulletin board. Good luck can’t last forever though; she drops her lucky penny in the toilet and then misspells the very first word during the class spelling bee. She's then asked to accompany classmate and bee winner Jessica to Washington, D.C., to babysit a pet piglet—that she accidentally almost loses. Character development is minimal but, Holy Baloney! McDonald’s lively style still has lots of young-reader appeal, even after all these years and outings. Quirky black-and-white illustrations on almost every page accompany the large-font and good-humored text. Nothing truly compelling happens, but all of Judy’s adventures are amusing and in sync with a third-grader's experience. The brisk pace and familiar situations are likely to keep young readers and listeners engaged.
Another enjoyable outing with predictable Judy, just like a pleasant visit with an old friend. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3451-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
A funny and timely primer for budding activists.
Problems are afoot at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, and it’s up to Bea Garcia to gather the troops and fight.
Bea Garcia and her best friend, Judith Einstein, sit every day under the 250-year-old oak tree in their schoolyard and imagine a face in its trunk. They name it “Emily” after their favorite American poet. Bea loves to draw both real and imagined pictures of their favorite place—the squirrels in the tree, the branches that reach for the sky, the view from the canopy even though she’s never climbed that high. Until the day a problem boy does climb that high, pelting the kids with acorns and then getting stuck. Bert causes such a scene that the school board declares Emily a nuisance and decides to chop it down. Bea and Einstein rally their friends with environmental facts, poetry, and artwork to try to convince the adults in their lives to change their minds. Bea must enlist Bert if she wants her plan to succeed. Can she use her imagination and Bert’s love of monsters to get him in line? In Bea’s fourth outing, Zemke gently encourages her protagonist to grow from an artist into an activist. Her energy and passion spill from both her narration and her frequent cartoons, which humorously extend the text. Spanish-speaking Bea’s Latinx, Einstein and Bert present white, and their classmates are diverse.
A funny and timely primer for budding activists. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2941-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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