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RED KAYAK

Name: RED KAYAK
Author: Priscilla Cummings
ISBN: 0-525-47317-3

by Priscilla Cummings ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004

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A courageous teen’s moral dilemma—and how he comes to terms with it—underscores this well-written, sometimes gripping story. A young child, for whom 15-year-old Brady Parks once baby-sat, dies after his family’s kayak sinks during an outing. Brady’s valiant attempts to revive little Ben actually get him to breathe for a few minutes. Sadly, the tiny boy succumbs and Brady’s plagued with guilt and grief. His sorrow is nothing, though, compared with the shock of discovering that the tragedy was the result of a malicious prank by his two best friends. Even worse is Brady’s discovery that he himself unwittingly gave them the idea. This sickening fact, reluctance to rat on his pals, and the thought that he, too, could be criminally charged in the death keep Brady silent. In the end, though, Brady knows what he must do. The bland title and cover might keep kids away from this strong effort. Too bad: it deserves an audience. (Fiction. 11-14)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-525-47317-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
CHEATING FOR THE CHICKEN MAN
by Priscilla Cummings

- BOOK REVIEW
THE JOURNEY BACK
by Priscilla Cummings

- BOOK REVIEW
BLINDSIDED
by Priscilla Cummings

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THE VIEW FROM SATURDAY

by E.L. Konigsburg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996

The large cast, looping plot line, and embedded stories with different narrators require careful sorting, but the effort is...

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Admirable acts, challenging ideas, and grace notes positively festoon this superb tale of four sixth graders and a paraplegic teacher forming a junior high Academic Bowl team that sweeps away the competition.

The plot is composed of interwoven puzzles. What prompts Mrs. Olinski to choose Noah, Nadia, Ethan, and Julian for the team over the usual overachievers and honor students in her class? What do they know about her, themselves, and each other that puts them so precisely on the same wavelength and gives them such complementary knowledge and experience? Each has a tale to tell, in the course of which all four witness acts of kindness and respect that teach them to find those feelings in themselves and others. In wry prose filled with vivid imagery, information, and often oblique clues, Konigsburg takes her team through bonding, drills, and a series of contests as suspenseful as any in sports fiction; the children and Mrs. Olinski's public triumph mirror inner epiphanies of rare depth and richness.

The large cast, looping plot line, and embedded stories with different narrators require careful sorting, but the effort is eminently worthwhile, and Konigsburg kindly provides answers at the end. (Fiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996

ISBN: 978-0-689-80993-4

Page Count: 163

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MYSTERIOUS EDGE OF THE HEROIC WORLD
by E.L. Konigsburg

- BOOK REVIEW
FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER
by E.L. Konigsburg

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OUTCASTS OF 19 SCHUYLER PLACE
by E.L. Konigsburg

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THE GOODBYE BOAT

by Mary Joslin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999

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A picture book for the very young that attempts to grapple with the sorrow of coping with the death of a loved one. The text has so few words that readers and listeners will have to work hard to plumb its significance. “Friends together/laughing,/loving./Sad friends leaving,/wondering,/weeping.” The pictures show a gray-haired woman, a younger woman and man, a boy, a girl, and a dog in the sun; the children and the dog play on the beach, and then, as the sky grows dark, watch a boat in the distance. “Goodbye boat./It’s lost from sight.” The children are seen separate and alone in the twilight, and then in their beds. Soon it is morning again, and they play along the shore. “Yet when the boat has gone from view/it’s surely sailing somewhere new” and the scene is of a boat in full sun, with the older woman on board, and a dove flying in the golden light. The illustrations are hieratic and based on full, rounded geometric forms: the colors are beautifully rendered from light to dark, and each page has tiny boxes of details, almost like a bit of stop-action film, along its borders. With the aid of an imaginative adult, this book may spark comforting discussion in the face of losing a loved one; young readers may find it too abstract for perusing alone. (Picture book. 3-7)