by Phyllis Shalant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2002
After her best friend moves away, sixth-grader Lee Bloom meets some neighborhood children whose imaginative games fighting pirates in the attic of their home capture her imagination. It is 1960 and Lee attends the local public school while her new best friend, Polly Burke, goes to parochial school. Her new friend’s Catholicism presents problems for Lee on more than one front. Lee is Jewish and her mother, who came to Poland as a girl but whose parents perished in the Holocaust, distrusts all non-Jews. Her fears about permitting Lee to play at Polly’s house are partly justified when Polly’s mother leaves religious tracts in Lee’s books urging her to be saved before it is too late. Disturbed as she is by the prediction that she will go to hell, Lee refuses to blame Polly for the actions and attitudes of Polly’s mother. Nevertheless, Lee cannot disobey her own mother, who has forbidden her to play with Polly. Meanwhile, a school project about George Washington Carver makes Lee increasingly aware of the existence of prejudice and intolerance, which, as she observes from the behavior of the adults around her, has not yet disappeared. Lee herself slips when, in anger, she insults the African-American super of her apartment building who has befriended Lee’s nemesis, Eddie. Everyone is reconciled in a satisfying conclusion, except perhaps the unrepentant Mrs. Burke. The fantasy game involving pirates and Peter Pan that so engages Lee and her friends may strike readers of a comparable age as childish, but Shalant (Bartelby of the Mighty Mississippi, 2000, etc.) tells a good story that emphasizes the relationships among the characters rather than the religious or political issues. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46920-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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by David Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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