On an impulse, unhappy loner Teresa rescues brainy Barnie from a mean gang in their inner city junior high school—and the two flee to a suburban jungle that proves just as dangerous. Finding themselves at a shopping mall when their bus fare runs out, the two seem fairly successful hiding out in a large department store—Teresa is happy just to have a companion—but then they are hauled up before a night court of slick, well-regimented teenage runaways (the leaders are named Barbie and Ken) who also live in the store and surface after hours, and who don't take kindly to invasion of their turf. Soon they are invaded, though, by the Mouth Breathers, a grubbier gang of suburban greasers who rule the parking lot. There's a stemware-smashing middle-of-the-night battle; city-smart Teresa gets rid of the Mouth Breathers; and before long she has outsmarted the Ken-and-Barbie set as well, winning the store for herself and Barnie and getting a ground-floor start on a merchandising career. One problem with this broad, ham-handed satire is that Peck has no sharp sight on his targets: a mall with Gucci labels and a K mart is hard to place; an outmoded junior miss department buyer promoting the Dale Evans western look is too far out even to be a credible figure of fun; and Peck's stereotyped, commodity-oriented runaways are more recognizable as prevailing clichés than as the plastic people he intends to mock. Worse, Teresa and Barnie have no personalities either and their thoughts and conversations no vitality.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0440402700
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1979
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
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A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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