An uplifting gem.
To rescue his father from prison, 11-year-old Oliver “Spaghetti-O” Jones tries to get a little help from his favorite luchador.
After months of legal woes, Oliver’s father ends up in a Florida correctional center despite his assurances to Oliver and his irritable big sister, Louisa, that “[e]verything was going to be fine.” Now Louisa won’t even talk to their father, but Oliver’s not giving up that easily. Inspired by his favorite luchador-turned–action hero, Tito the Bonecrusher (motto: “Never quit trying!”), Oliver needs to concoct a plan to bust his father out of prison. To do so, he must infiltrate a charity gala to meet the bombastic action star, who holds the know-how required for such a daring caper. Thomson’s excellent middle-grade debut plumbs the absurdity and desperation inherent in a painful situation. Throughout the ordeal, Oliver battles and suppresses his grief and pain in a way that younger readers can recognize and perhaps understand amid the humor; more than anything, it’s this implicit focus that makes this novel a great one. Going along for the tumultuous ride is Oliver’s best friend, Brain (a girl genius), and some unexpected allies. Each scheme (celebrity photos with forged signatures, skipping detention via a decoy) seems more outrageous than the last, but when the day of the gala arrives, will Oliver have what it takes to save the day? A white default is assumed.
An uplifting gem. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-374-30353-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
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