Standard summer-camp–centric fare: Meatballs with bullies.
Will Camp Wy-Mee get the best of Rodney Rathbone, or can he survive bullies in the wild?
Twelve-year-old Rodney survived his first school year in Ohio thanks to luck and bully-avoidance skills (How to Beat the Bully Without Really Trying, 2012). His plans for spending the summer with new friends (and girlfriend) are shattered when his parents decide to send him to camp without asking what he wants. (Were they prompted to send him by nefarious forces?) Even worse, school bully Josh Dumbrowski's headed for camp, too. Once there, Rodney finds Josh is small potatoes when it comes to bullying; Todd Vanderdick (seriously) and his snooty friends are ready to make Rodney's summer unbearable. To top it off, Mrs. Periwinkle, the camp owner, and her staff have it in for Rodney from the get-go. Rodney and his quirky cabin mates make the best of strange situations; but when the future of the camp rests on their shoulders, will they be up to the task? Starkey’s second title featuring unconventional bully-bester Rodney again has a few pop-culture references that will sail over the heads of the target audience. Several characters’ obsessive focus on girls further narrows the age range. Rodney's snarky narration can be funny, but his double standard on two-timing (it's okay for boys, not girls) and his judgmental nature (despite protestations to the contrary) make him less than admirable.
Standard summer-camp–centric fare: Meatballs with bullies. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5674-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Dim and dismal.
Cut-paper silhouettes illustrate this large-format tale of a young prince’s efforts to break the chains of loneliness and isolation imposed on him by his high station.
Rendered unappealing by an interminable and pedestrian text, illegible by virtue of many pages of gray type on black or dark blue backgrounds, and leaden of spirit thanks to the dingy palette, this overblown effort starts sinking as soon as it leaves the dock. Surrounded by adults and always knowing that “his destiny was to reign,” a prince finds solace in drawing an imaginary village with ultraviolet ink on his bed curtains, rambling about an abandoned attic, and sneaking off into town at night to wander about and, er, sing: “Like a fox, I am always looking / But I don’t know quite what for. / The people nobody thinks about, that’s whose side I’m on.” Finally a jejune promise left by his father (whom he’d hardly ever seen) that he need never feel lonely because “I will always be here. / Deep in your heart…” leaves him wanting “to tear off all his clothes and dive head first into this swirling sea of life.” How he gets on, naked or otherwise, will be covered in a pair of planned sequels. The jacket unfolds into a large poster containing a different but similarly incoherent manifesto in cut-out letters.
Dim and dismal. (Illustrated fiction. 11-13, adult)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56656-077-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
A surprisingly successful, suspenseful, and engrossing take on the Cyrano story with a contemporary twist.
To help her good-looking but painfully tongue-tied best friend, Aggie, land Drew, the boy of her dreams, Cici pretends to be Aggie online.
When it comes to savvy advice, Cici has a reputation of always being right, “like a Magic 8 Ball.” Nonetheless, Cici’s clever idea of impersonating Aggie on social media immediately backfires. Cici falls for the handsome hockey player herself, and Aggie is so different from Cici in person that Drew becomes confused. Told with a female protagonist, Springer’s shrewd update of the Cyrano de Bergerac story uses it as the perfect prism for middle school girls, demonstrating how hitting puberty at different times can affect social status, love relationships, and friendship. For a light, rather humorous novel, it’s a surprisingly potent theme, and it also brings up an interesting point: how these bodily changes are hard on the girls who develop early as well as on the ones who develop later. Although Cici is almost 13, two months older than Aggie, she still looks like a little girl, while Aggie is the reluctant owner of a pair of “ginormous” boobs. Cici and Drew are engaging characters whose behaviors feel organic, but Aggie’s character feels pieced together, a bunch of disparate traits molded to fit the plot. Springer makes little effort to populate her story with racially or ethnically diverse characters.
A surprisingly successful, suspenseful, and engrossing take on the Cyrano story with a contemporary twist. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1751-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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