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
BOOK REVIEW
In this series debut, Maggie Sinclair tracks down a dognapper and solves a mystery about the noises in the walls of her Brooklyn brownstone apartment building. The 12-year-old heroine, who shares a middle name—Brooklyn—with her twin brother, Finn, is juggling two dogwalking jobs she’s keeping secret from her parents, and somehow she attracts the ire of the dogs’ former walker. Maggie tells her story in the first person—she’s self-possessed and likable, even when her clueless brother invites her ex–best friend, now something of an enemy, to their shared 12th birthday party. Maggie’s attention to details helps her to figure out why dogs seem to be disappearing and why there seem to be mice in the walls of her building, though astute readers will pick up on the solution to at least one mystery before Maggie solves it. There’s a brief nod to Nancy Drew, but the real tensions in this contemporary preteen story are more about friendship and boy crushes than skullduggery. Still, the setting is appealing, and Maggie is a smart and competent heroine whose personal life is just as interesting as—if not more than—her detective work. (Mystery. 10-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 967-1-59990-525-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
A child finds that being alone in a tiny tropical paradise has its ups and downs in this appealingly offbeat tale from the Australian author of Peeling the Onion (1999). Though her mother is long dead and her scientist father Jack has just sailed off on a quick expedition to gather plankton, Nim is anything but lonely on her small island home. Not only does she have constant companions in Selkie, a sea lion, and a marine iguana named Fred, but Chica, a green turtle, has just arrived for an annual egg-laying—and, through the solar-powered laptop, she has even made a new e-mail friend in famed adventure novelist Alex Rover. Then a string of mishaps darkens Nim’s sunny skies: her father loses rudder and dish antenna in a storm; a tourist ship that was involved in her mother’s death appears off the island’s reefs; and, running down a volcanic slope, Nim takes a nasty spill that leaves her feverish, with an infected knee. Though she lives halfway around the world and is in reality a decidedly unadventurous urbanite, Alex, short for “Alexandra,” sets off to the rescue, arriving in the midst of another storm that requires Nim and companions to rescue her. Once Jack brings his battered boat limping home, the stage is set for sunny days again. Plenty of comic, freely-sketched line drawings help to keep the tone light, and Nim, with her unusual associates and just-right mix of self-reliance and vulnerability, makes a character young readers won’t soon tire of. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-81123-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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