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THE DANCING TREE

Name: THE DANCING TREE
Author: Ramon Royal Ross
ISBN: 0-689-80072-X

by Ramon Royal Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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An eccentric piece, more like a sorrowful fairy tale with only a whisper of hope at its core. Zeenie, 12, describes how her mother left her and her father the week before, following years in a marriage that appears, to the child, enigmatic at best. She offers scraps of memory: her mother's worry over the cost of watermelon, a trip to the tiny cabin where her parents first honeymooned and where they obviously hope to recapture the happy past, her mother's announcement that she has taken a job outside the home. With her mother gone and her father increasingly remote, Zeenie turns to her grandmother for solace and receives, to her surprise, a story about the giant sycamore in the center of her meadow, an encounter with a regal gypsy, a wild dance around the tree, and an attack of rabid dogs. Ross (Harper and Moon, 1993, etc.) composes this novella entirely from Zeenie's perspective; what puzzles her will puzzle readers, too, and they may not understand or be comforted by the link between Zeenie's troubles and her grandmother's. The writing is evocative, deliberately episodic, every incident fraught with significance; understatement both adds to the compelling aura of mystery and leaves too much unsaid for some readers. For the rare few who will see its moments of grace. (Fiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-689-80072-X

Page Count: 59

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY

From the Joey Pigza series , Vol. 1

by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1998

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If Rotten Ralph were a boy instead of a cat, he might be Joey, the hyperactive hero of Gantos's new book, except that Joey is never bad on purpose. In the first-person narration, it quickly becomes clear that he can't help himself; he's so wound up that he not only practically bounces off walls, he literally swallows his house key (which he wears on a string around his neck and which he pull back up, complete with souvenirs of the food he just ate). Gantos's straightforward view of what it's like to be Joey is so honest it hurts. Joey has been abandoned by his alcoholic father and, for a time, by his mother (who also drinks); his grandmother, just as hyperactive as he is, abuses Joey while he's in her care. One mishap after another leads Joey first from his regular classroom to special education classes and then to a special education school. With medication, counseling, and positive reinforcement, Joey calms down. Despite a lighthearted title and jacket painting, the story is simultaneously comic and horrific; Gantos takes readers right inside a human whirlwind where the ride is bumpy and often frightening, especially for Joey. But a river of compassion for the characters runs through the pages, not only for Joey but for his overextended mom and his usually patient, always worried (if only for their safety) teachers. Mature readers will find this harsh tale softened by unusual empathy and leavened by genuinely funny events. (Fiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-374-33664-4

Page Count: 154

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
WRITING RADAR
by Jack Gantos ; illustrated by Jack Gantos

- BOOK REVIEW
THE TROUBLE IN ME
by Jack Gantos

- BOOK REVIEW
THE KEY THAT SWALLOWED JOEY PIGZA
by Jack Gantos

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A WEEK IN THE WOODS

by Andrew Clements ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2002

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Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he’ll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he’s being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate’s, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the “slacker” will be waiting for rescue around the next bend—and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark’s neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen’s or Will Hobbs’s more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain—at length—everyone’s history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy—but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers’ ability to figure out for themselves what’s going on in each character’s life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)