From Warner (Ellie and the Bunheads, 1997, etc.), a story about best friends separated by illness, then death, when one of them is diagnosed with leukemia. Cady and Nana have been friends since they were babies, but as the story opens, on Nana’s 12th birthday, she has cancer and Cady, the timid one, is trying to figure out what to do. She visits Nana every day, even in the hospital, even when her friend comes home to die. Cady is angry and lonely, and doesn’t understand why her parents are concerned. Both sets of parents, the nurses, doctors, and hospice workers, fill this book with words: descriptions of cancer treatment; a fairly clinical delineation of how those with leukemia may get sicker and die; and some fairly straight talk about survivor anger and guilt, how the dying feel, what happens to daily life when a loved one is dying. The information ultimately overwhelms the story: The best friends are described rather than felt, less vividly realized than Cady’s brother Russell, five, who is terrified that his sister will die, just as his pet turtle did. This is more bibliotherapeutic than story; much richer and more harrowing—although with older protagonists and for older readers—is Davida Wills Hurwin’s A Time for Dancing (1995). (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-88648-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Budding billionaire Greg Kenton has a knack for making money and a serious rival. When he issues his first Chunky Comic Book at the beginning of sixth grade, his neighbor and classmate Maura Shaw produces an alternative. Their quarrel draws the attention of the principal, who bans comics from the school. But when they notice all the other commercial messages in their school, they take their cause to the local school committee. Without belaboring his point, Clements takes on product placement in schools and the need for wealth. “Most people can only use one bathroom at a time,” says Greg’s math teacher, Mr. Z. Greg gets the message; middle-grade readers may ignore it in favor of the delightful spectacle of Greg’s ultimate economic success, a pleasing result for the effort this up-and-coming young businessman puts into his work. Clements weaves intriguing information about comic book illustration into this entertaining, smoothly written story. Selznick’s accompanying black-and-white drawings have the appearance of sketches Greg might have made himself. This hits the jackpot. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-86683-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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