Pair this quiet charmer with Eileen Spinelli’s slightly more challenging, free verse Where I Live, illustrated by Matt...
Back for a third outing, grade-schooler Daisy, a serious collector of words, discovers the joy of poetry.
Daisy is thrilled to be invited by a neighbor to a poetry party. Not yet a poet herself, she brings along her lists of favorite words. The other poets—all adults—warmly welcome her and help her to see that her word lists are already poetic. With that encouragement, she begins writing her own poems in a few different forms. Daisy is also concerned about what kind of project she can put together for an end-of-school-year showcase. As she grows more comfortable with poetry, she realizes she can create the perfect display, although her project—a “word cafe” where she shares her favorites along with some poetry—seems a trifle elaborate for her age. Although Daisy encounters very little strife and few challenges, her enthusiasm and Feder’s gentle storytelling provide a pleasant combination. Mitchell’s black-and-white illustrations, one or two to each brief chapter, feature round-eyed people with circular cheek highlights, simple yet appealingly cheerful. Pages are uncluttered, with largish font generously leaded, and she utilizes a manageable vocabulary for those recently transitioned to chapter books.
Pair this quiet charmer with Eileen Spinelli’s slightly more challenging, free verse Where I Live, illustrated by Matt Phelan (2007), for an even broader exploration of poetry . (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-55453-908-6
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.
Hannah Hadley is a young special agent who must thwart a clear and present danger to the United States in Hoover’s “smart is cool” young adult novel.
Hannah Hadley might seem like most 13-year-old girls. She enjoys painting, playing with her MP3 player and spending time with friends. But that’s where the similarities end. Hadley doubles as Agent 10-1, among the youngest spies drafted into the CIA’s Div Y department. She’s joined in her missions by her 10-pound Shih Tzu, Kiwi (with whom she communicates telepathically), and her best friend Tommie Claire, a blind girl with heightened senses. When duty calls, the group sneaks to a hidden command center located under the floor of Hadley’s art studio. Her current mission, aptly named “Operation Farmer Jones,” takes her to a secluded farmhouse in Canada. There, al-Qaida terrorists have gathered the necessary ingredients for a particularly devastating nuclear warhead that they intend to fire into America. The villains are joined by the Mad Madam of Mayhem, a physicist for hire whom the terrorists force to complete the weapon of mass destruction. With Charlie Higson’s Young James Bond series and the ongoing 39 Clues novellas, covert missions and secret plans are the plots of choice in much of today’s fiction for young readers, and references to the famed 007 stories abound in Hoover’s tale. But while the plot feels familiar, Hoover’s use of modern slang—albeit strained at times—and gadgets such as the iTouch appeal to today’s youth. Placing girls in adult situations has been a mainstay since Mildred Wirt Benson first introduced readers to Nancy Drew in The Secret of the Old Clock, but Hannah Hadley is like Nancy Drew on steroids. Both are athletic, score well in their studies and have a measure of popularity. Hadley, however, displays a genius-level intellect and near superhuman abilities in her efforts to roust the terrorists—handy skills for a young teen spy who just so happens to get the best grades in school.
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615419688
Page Count: 239
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A mermaid is born with two tails, and a boy is born with webbed fingers in this lengthy original fairy tale. They suffer the tribulations that are the lot of the different: ridicule and shunning. Neither has friends, and they are both delivered unto a circus sideshow presided over by the shrill and heartless Ring Mistress (drawn with marcel wave and pinched mouth). The two begin to wither in their own ways, until fate draws them into close association and they discover their similarities; not just the webbed fingers but something deeper and elementally innocent binds them. George’s narrative is ethereal and formal, with a voiceover quality that invests the artwork with cinematic flow. Halpin’s curious combination of aggressively cherubic, if somewhat characterless, faces and emotive, atmospheric settings benefits from this. It says much for the writing that it carries the reader along, despite the bonding of the mermaid and the boy being foregone, their escape destined (though that’s a drawn-out affair in which the illustrations can’t corral all the action). The epilogue has an unexpected, romantic twist—heroic, adventurous, idealized—that bodes well for a sequel. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-897476-53-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Simply Read
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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