“Them loud-mouthed Collins girls,” Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, and narrator Carolina, receive a responsibility makeover in this sweetly slight coming-of-age story set in rural Kentucky in 1955. The agent of change is their cousin Tadpole, a dreamy and musical orphan who has fled his cruel uncle for the loving welcome, if not safety, of his aunt and cousins. The four girls have lived alone with their mother ever since their father left them years ago; their mother, a well-meaning but weak-willed woman, has let them run wild and selfish. Under Tadpole’s influence, the girls learn to help out around the house and to support their mother; additionally, Carolina, the youngest and most-overlooked of the four, discovers a talent for music. Everything happens almost by surprise in this agreeably slow story: Tad goes back and forth between the Collinses and his uncle, finally running away for good; the family goes to a picnic; a widower begins sparking the girls’ mother; Carolina and Tad sing in a talent contest; but White (Memories of Summer, 2001, etc.) creates such vivid and pleasing characters that the reader is happy to bide a while despite an overt lack of action. The progress of the girls from happy-go-lucky and irresponsible to a more focused concentration on the good of the family is fairly obvious and programmatic, but once again is accomplished with such amiability that it’s easy to swallow. Their mother’s corresponding journey from pushover to woman with a spine is touchingly presented through Carolina’s eyes, with a little help from Tadpole. Written in a vivid drawl, this optimistic confection is all Southern sweetness. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 11, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-31002-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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