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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers...
From the author of the Animorphs series comes this earnest novel in verse about an orphaned Sudanese war refugee with a passion for cows, who has resettled in Minnesota with relatives.
Arriving in winter, Kek spots a cow that reminds him of his father’s herd, a familiar sight in an alien world. Later he returns with Hannah, a friendly foster child, and talks the cow’s owner into hiring him to look after it. When the owner plans to sell the cow, Kek becomes despondent. Full of wide-eyed amazement and unalloyed enthusiasm for all things American, Kek is a generic—bordering on insulting—stereotype. His tribe, culture and language are never identified; personal details, such as appearance and age, are vague or omitted. Lacking the quirks and foibles that bring characters to life, Kek seems more a composite of traits designed to instruct readers than an engaging individual in his own right.
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers interested in the plight of war refugees. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-36765-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
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
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