“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
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist.
This is the way Pearl’s world ends: not with a bang but with a scream.
Pearl Moran was born in the Lancaster Avenue branch library and considers it more her home than the apartment she shares with her mother, the circulation librarian. When the head of the library’s beloved statue of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is found to be missing, Pearl’s scream brings the entire neighborhood running. Thus ensues an enchanting plunge into the underbelly of a failing library and a city brimful of secrets. With the help of friends old, uncertainly developing, and new, Pearl must spin story after compelling story in hopes of saving what she loves most. Indeed, that love—of libraries, of books, and most of all of stories—suffuses the entire narrative. Literary references are peppered throughout (clarified with somewhat superfluous footnotes) in addition to a variety of tangential sidebars (the identity of whose writer becomes delightfully clear later on). Pearl is an odd but genuine narrator, possessed of a complex and emotional inner voice warring with a stridently stubborn outer one. An array of endearing supporting characters, coupled with a plot both grounded in stressful reality and uplifted by urban fantasy, lend the story its charm. Both the neighborhood and the library staff are robustly diverse. Pearl herself is biracial; her “long-gone father” was black and her mother is white. Bagley’s spot illustrations both reinforce this and add gentle humor.
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist. (reading list) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6952-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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