A probation officer wouldn't seem to be a very promising narrator for a story about Chicano youth, but in this case he turns out to be the right kind of concerned but neutral observer, one distanced enough to reduce the character of young gang leader Manuel Castillo to a series of dramatic, highly symbolic gestures. We first meet Manuel in the bullring, where he leaps from the stands to confront a charging bull and, hopefully, demonstrate his machismo to a young lady; he is last seen throwing himself under a mechanical grape picker in a desperate gesture of defiance against the automation of the local vineyard. In between, Manuel's naive but fiery idealism pits him against Ernie Sierra — a smooth operator and leader of the rival Owls who turns out to be smuggling heroin from Mexico via homing pigeons. Like the bull and cock fights that apotheosize the action, Manuel's nobility can best be appreciated as an aesthetic abstraction; Odell tells the tale — and it's a compelling one — with enough laconic conviction to make this possible, while at the same time using the skeptical comments of the officer's pragmatic minded wife Alice as a foil. And when we question whether the officer really sees the truth about Manuel, then we remember that his reactions are filtered through his own frequently expressed sense of futility and uninvolvement. Contemporary parables are a tricky business; O'Dell invests this one with a self-contained dignity, and it can be read as a psychological thriller even while one is pondering just how deep the vein of fatalism really runs.
Pub Date: Sept. 4, 1974
ISBN: 0440912393
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1974
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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