Two seemingly unrelated terrors gripped teenage Dan on a family trip to York, England, in Shadows on the Wall (1980), the first volume of Naylor's projected "York Trilogy": the possibility of his father, and if so Dan too, developing the hereditary Huntington's disease; and the unexplained seizure of dread that came to be associated with ghosts of Roman soldiers. The disease is in the background here, but the soldiers and the mysterious gypsies Dan visited in York still haunt him on his grandmother's farm on the Susquehanna, where he has carried an ancient coin traded to him back in England by a gypsy his age. Grandma's itinerant hired man resembles one of the gypsies; another of the gypsies stares up at him from the stream in Grandmother's cellar, as the Roman did from the river in York; a magpie associated with all the gypsies calls his name; and, midway, Dan himself slips through time and space to Roman England, where the gypsy family turns up as tribespeople fighting the occupying army and Dan tries to help the pretty gypsy daughter find a haven. Back in the present, he knows the hired man must have a sister who needs Dan's help. . . but he hasn't found her when this installment ends. No doubt the stories will come together in the final volume. Meanwhile we have some smooth and fairly complex interweaving of the characters' various manifestations; some spooky effects that are effective until, once more, they pile up ludicrously; some fairly shallow musings on time and time-travel; and a general gloss of grade-B melodramatic writing.
Pub Date: March 16, 1981
ISBN: 0689849621
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1981
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren.
In talk-show host Fallon and illustrator Ordóñez’s latest picture-book collaboration, an elderly pooch waxes rhapsodic about a life well lived.
Observing Papa sitting in his chair watching TV all day, a young pup says, “I’m starting to think…you don’t do ANYTHING.” So Papa proceeds to list his accomplishments, both big and small, mundane and profound. Some are just a result of being older and physically bigger (being tall enough to reach a high shelf and strong enough to open jars); others include winning a race and performing in a band when he was younger. Eventually, the pup realizes that while Papa may have slowed down in his old age, he’s led a full life. The most satisfying thing about Papa’s life now? Watching his grandchild take center stage: “I can say lots of thoughts / but I choose to be quiet. / I’d rather you discover things and then try it.” Fallon’s straightforward text is sweetly upbeat, though it occasionally lacks flow, forcing incongruous situations together to fit the rhyme scheme (“I cook and I mow, / and I once flew a plane. // I play newspaper puzzles because it’s good for my brain”). Featuring uncluttered, colorful backgrounds, Ordóñez’s child-friendly digital art at times takes on sepia tones, evoking the sense of looking back at old photos or memories. Though the creators tread familiar ground, the love between Papa and his little one is palpable.
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781250393975
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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