Unlikely to break any records for winning new fans.
Will breaking a world record break up long-standing friendships?
Ten-year-old Teddy Mars is obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records. He’ll even be in the next volume for sleeping in a tent the longest for a person under 12. World records are always on his mind. When his teacher announces the school’s annual invention fair—and her deep desire to win, for once—Teddy’s constant attempts to plan another record get between him and his best friends, Lonnie and Viva, since they have to work in different invention groups. Despite his dislike of group records, Teddy, his new partners, and his old friends decide to break the record for plastic bags collected in secret, while working on their inventions, but disagreements threaten their plans. Meanwhile, Teddy’s home life with preoccupied parents, five needy sisters, and a brat of a little brother (nicknamed “The Destructor”) complicates matters to no end. Burnham’s second Teddy Mars title is chock-full of more quirky records, many straining to act as comparisons to events in Teddy’s life. Even records enthusiasts may find it tiresome. In this trying-to-be realistic tale, Teddy’s family is played for over-the-top laughs, but, like much of the novel’s other humor, it’s trying too hard. Teddy and Viva appear to be white in Spencer’s illustrations, while Lonnie is black; their fairly diverse classroom includes a Cambodian immigrant.
Unlikely to break any records for winning new fans. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-227813-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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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