An entertaining (and true, according to an author’s note) story of a family that lives at Carnegie Hall in 1944, with the fighting of WWII far away. It nearly breaks 13-year-old Cassandra Lord’s heart when her mother announces that the family will move from their comfortable Connecticut home to be with Papa in New York City. But when she sees exactly where they will be living, she can hardly believe it—in bandleader Papa’s rehearsal studio in Carnegie Hall. It’s far too small, cramped, and stuffy for a family of four; Cassandra desperately misses her past life. The one ray of light, however, is Tony, a tough city boy who also lives there; he loves the city, and begins to show a reluctant Cassandra some of its joys. During a visit to Connecticut, though, Cassandra forgets both New York City and Tony, and dreams of picking up her old life where she left off. This isn’t the first story about a protagonist vacillating between an old home and a new one, and despite the unusual locale, it’s not a very substantial treatment. Still, Hopper evokes the scenes of the city, and what the book lacks in credibility, it makes up for in sheer diversion. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8037-2329-6
Page Count: 151
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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