An engaging introduction to what’s sure to be a breezy fantasy series.
A boy chances upon a remarkable girl who’s also sometimes a bird in this opening installment of Butler’s chapter-book series.
Third grader Ben has trouble believing his new friend Olivia’s story about a “Bird Girl.” This “wild girl” lives in the state park and makes it her mission to free caged birds. But then Ben meets Bird Girl, sitting high in a tree with her black hair jutting out like spread wings. She doesn’t have a name—for now, she calls herself Benita. She mentions a club; its members include herself, Olivia, and two other school kids. They’re all young, as Benita is invisible to any human over the age of 9. While the members are oddly mum about the club’s “true purpose,” Ben does witness Benita transform into a crow. He also gets the chance to help Benita do what she does best when two recently liberated parakeets are recaptured and in need of rescue. Butler’s compact tale is one of discovery and wonderment—Ben has many things to ask after learning about Benita, who has to limit him to five questions at his first club meeting. His untiring inquisitiveness opens up a profound theme of identity—is Benita a girl who turns into a bird, or a bird who turns into a girl? Despite the book’s brevity, it has memorable personalities aplenty on offer: Olivia is reluctant to provide Ben with club details, one member worries about their upcoming dreaded 10th year, and parents write off Bird Girl tales as “dribble.” In lively prose, the author delivers such memorable images as Benita, in bird form, who “strutted across the steel pole like an Olympic gymnast.” Butler’s lightly shaded black-and-white illustrations are modest, though Benita and her distinctive hair always stand out. This book’s ending, perhaps unsurprisingly, sets up the next installment.
An engaging introduction to what’s sure to be a breezy fantasy series.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780982034286
Page Count: 82
Publisher: Pinchey House Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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