An accessible and funny morality tale that’s useful reading for work-obsessed parents as well as their children.
Veteran British children’s author Rosen gives a new twist to an old tale.
Eleven-year-old Harry Gruber has been cast as Scrooge in his school’s production of A Christmas Carol. The script of the play, based on Dickens’ classic, is interspersed with Harry’s thoughts and observations while he is performing the role. Harry’s parents and sister are in the audience, and all is going well until his workaholic dad decides that he cannot ignore a business call and abruptly walks out of the play. Ray Gruber’s dash to his office and his obsession with his business, to the exclusion of his family’s wants and needs, are skillfully mirrored with scenes in the play. In being a negligent parent, Gruber is Scrooge-like, in actions as well as behavior. A conversation with a business colleague starts to make him aware that his behavior is undesirable, and his recollections of his deprived childhood and his resentment of it make him realize the error of his ways. Scrooge’s revelations are paralleled by the growth of Ray’s personal awareness. To his family’s delight, he returns at the end of the play and turns from “the ogre of the family” to a good dad who applauds Harry’s performance. Harry and his family are white; both Harry’s classmates and Gruber’s business colleagues reflect a multicultural world.
An accessible and funny morality tale that’s useful reading for work-obsessed parents as well as their children. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0479-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Quirky and smart.
Is going back in time about changing outcomes or changing perspective? McKinley’s going to find out.
Sixth grader McKinley is excited about Time Hop, her town’s annual history celebration, which this time is celebrating the year 1993. In 1993, her father was also a sixth grader—and at the same school where the event is held. Taught to sew by her Grandma Bev, a talented seamstress even after suffering a stroke in 1993 that affected her speech and left half her body paralyzed, McKinley creates a fabulously retro outfit for the fashion show. But on the big day, her single father needs to work, and he asks McKinley to stay home to give Grandma Bev her medications. Instead, she decides to bring her grandma to the Time Hop, but it’s a disaster. McKinley has a fight with her best friend, then her father shows up and orders her off the runway. McKinley runs away—and right back in time to 1993. The third-person voice is bright and energetic, while vivid descriptions capture the cast of predominantly White characters as their present and past selves. McKinley is especially endearing, ringing true as a confused, creative, well-meaning tween who realizes she may have been sent back in time to solve a problem—but which one? Or is this journey all about gaining insight so she can better handle her life? The philosophical questions are delivered with a light touch.
Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781524738624
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage...
This sequel to The Lemonade War (2007), picking up just a few days later, focuses on how the fourth graders take justice into their own hands after learning that the main suspect in the case of the missing lemonade-stand money now owns the latest in game-box technology.
Siblings Evan and Jessie (who skipped third grade because of her precocity) are sure Scott Spencer stole the $208 from Evan’s shorts and want revenge, especially as Scott’s new toy makes him the most popular kid in class, despite his personal shortcomings. Jessie’s solution is to orchestrate a full-blown trial by jury after school, while Evan prefers to challenge Scott in basketball. Neither channel proves satisfactory for the two protagonists (whose rational and emotional reactions are followed throughout the third-person narrative), though, ultimately, the matter is resolved. Set during the week of Yom Kippur, the story raises beginning questions of fairness, integrity, sin and atonement. Like John Grisham's Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer (2010), much of the book is taken up with introducing courtroom proceedings for a fourth-grade level of understanding. Chapter headings provide definitions (“due diligence,” “circumstantial evidence,” etc.) and explanation cards/documents drawn by Jessie are interspersed.
Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage with the characters enough to care about how the justice actually pans out. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-27967-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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