by Rebecca O’Connell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2007
Life for Penina is becoming more combative. Her bratty four-year-old sister, Mimsy, is continually tattling and getting Penina grounded for inappropriate behavior. Her teacher, Ms. Anderson, is threatening her with a zero when Penina, who is Jewish, has misgivings and refuses to complete a required assignment related to Easter. And best friend Zozo provides very little moral support, and is sure Ms. Anderson will “flunk” Penina for missing three days of school to attend the family Seders out of town. Unwilling to confront her parents, who are already angry with her, Penina confides her problems to Grandma while peeling hard-boiled eggs for the Seder. Grandma quietly intercedes to make sure Penina gets some adult support. Her parents intervene at school to clear up the misunderstanding between a first-year teacher’s misguided good intentions and a sensitive religious issue. Through it all, Penina’s resilience strengthens as her predicament becomes heated much the way an egg hardens as it cooks in hot water. Well-crafted multiple themes are integrated into a captivating, realistic middle-grade novel where conflicts are addressed, if not resolved, in pragmatic and convincing scenarios. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-59643-140-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Deborah Brodie/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
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by David Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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by Valerie Worth & illustrated by Natalie Babbitt
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