A singularly appealing group of kids populates this nifty mystery for readers ready for a challenge
Smashie McPerter has made her distaste for Patches, Room 11’s new class hamster, abundantly clear—so when he is stolen from his cage, she immediately becomes a prime suspect.
It’s been a particularly terrible day. Room 11 is suffering under the thoroughly incompetent attentions of sub Mr. Carper, a rank narcissist. One of their number has begun booby-trapping objects with glue so when they are picked up, hand and item are fused. Principal Anderson is positively “ILL” at the mayhem. So when Patches goes missing, Smashie and her best friend, Dontel, turn detective; it will take all of Smashie’s wildly intuitive imagination and Dontel’s contemplative smarts to restore peace and hamster to Room 11. Though Smashie’s quirky ebullience can’t be disputed, she is no Ramona/Junie B./Clementine clone. Deeply concerned with justice, she is also sweetly empathetic in the face of her classmates’ distress. The levelheaded Dontel makes a splendid foil. Griffin writes a consistently smart book, layering subplots and red herrings on her central mystery and unapologetically using $20 vocabulary. She carefully provides context clues that will help her young middle-grade audience understand challenging words, introducing Smashie’s discomfort at “the weight of [her classmates’] unjust censure” with the crystalline observation that they “were angrier at her than ever!”
A singularly appealing group of kids populates this nifty mystery for readers ready for a challenge . (Mystery. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6145-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A buoyant eye-opener for younger readers under the impression that African folk tales begin and end with Anansi.
Naidoo and Grobler follow up their Afrocentric collection of Aesop’s Fables (2011) with a fresh set of tales drawn from Amharic, Luo, Zulu and other traditions.
“Once, Lion wanted to check that all the animals knew who was boss. So he went to each in turn.” In these breezy retellings the lessons are pointed but (generally) nonfatal: Lion gets a sudden comeuppance from Elephant (“Who is King?”); Hippo discovers that Fire is a chancy friend (“Why Hippo Has No Hair”); a clever “Miller’s Daughter” outwits a harsh sultan with help from a djinni; an elephant with a newly stretched-out trunk uses it not for spanking, as Kipling’s Elephant’s Child does, but to make eating and drinking easier. In his cartoon illustrations, Grobler outfits humans in traditional regional dress and animals either similarly or sometimes with vibrant stripes or other decorative patterns. The stories range from one to six pages each, and the language lends itself with equal ease to reading aloud or silently. Though aside from an occasional word or song they are light on specific cultural markers, the tales offer a rich assortment of chuckle-worthy tricks, suspenseful adventures and salutary examples of behavior laudable or otherwise.
A buoyant eye-opener for younger readers under the impression that African folk tales begin and end with Anansi. (introduction, source notes) (Folk tales. 7-9)Pub Date: April 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-84780-514-0
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There are more than 150 kinds of ducks, divided into two types: diving ducks and dabbling ducks. Gibbons briefly describes and illustrates both kinds, then presents the lifecycle of the familiar mallard dabbling duck in greater detail. She explains the different ways of migration, the return to build nests, lay and incubate eggs, and hatch ducklings, which then grow to repeat the cycle. The last section discusses domesticated ducks and makes a case for protecting those in the wild. Gibbons provides detailed watercolors on every page with handsome portraits of many different ducks, labeled for identification of parts as well as types. The main text is placed on white space at the bottom, leaving room for the lovely drawings. While each picture does not fill the page, Gibbons's trademark pieces break through the borders and extend the scenes. One quibble: the duckling emerging from the egg appears to be fluffy and dry, while in reality a newly emerged duckling is slippery wet. A final page concludes with additional interesting facts about ducks. Young readers will enjoy this appealing introduction to the familiar waterfowl by the prolific science writer who has provided so many outstanding science titles. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8234-1567-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
