Predatory lending may someday yield great works of children’s literature, but that day is not today.
Loans, interest, and debt all get their day in the sun in this tale of a princess hornswoggled by a smooth-talking siding salesman.
Princess Persephone is distraught by the drafts in her father’s castle. When Aluminum Jim offers to sell and install tin siding on her home, she leaps at the chance. He even offers her a loan with a 50-page contract. Ignoring the sensible objections of Spice the dragon, Persephone signs without reading the contract. Unsurprisingly, after a sloppy installation job, her first bill comes due, and she discovers that she owes more than she can pay. Before you know it, she’s lost her castle entirely. Written by a former FDIC chair, the book valiantly attempts to simplify the concept of predatory lending and its risks but gets in over its head. The urge to teach children to “Beware the Trickster Lender” (as the backmatter further elucidates) is a noble one, but much of the text will remain obscure to young readers despite its expression in rhyming couplets (“With interest compounded annually, / The loan, it balloons exponentially”). Most baffling is the complete absence of a glossary at the end of the book. Should a child reader manage to engage with the material and wish to learn more, they’ll be hard-pressed to define such terms as lien or default—rightly identified as “mystery words”—or even contract. Bair’s Billy the Borrowing Blue-Footed Booby, illustrated by Amy Zhing, publishes simultaneously and addresses consumer debt in abab stanzas.
Predatory lending may someday yield great works of children’s literature, but that day is not today. (Picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6647-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Hannah remains too superficial to ever be engaging.
Back for a third outing is 14-year-old Hannah, the breezy white star of her own local television show, this time bound for a treasure hunt that will be filmed for a new on-air project.
The good news is that the treasure hunt will be conducted from the lavish decks of Piper’s father’s yacht. The bad news is myriad: pretty-girl Piper is conniving, competitive, and deceitful; her father, a study in hyperbole, is remarkably controlling and nasty; Hannah’s wished-for love interest is along but seems focused on Piper; and Hannah is very prone to seasickness. Piper does whatever she can to undermine the mostly easygoing Hannah, right up to giving her a powerful sedative tablet that she represents as a seasickness remedy. Hannah is just trying to do a good job while feeling daunted by Piper’s many supposed talents. Stock, white-by-default characters are flat and predictable. Although Piper’s over-the-top machinations and the undersea treasure hunt make waves, Hannah’s blandly effervescent voice contributes little. When Piper publicly owns up to the error of her ways at the conclusion then swiftly finds common ground with her helicopter dad, it presents a somewhat unconvincing (and a bit preachy) feel-good ending. The cover art has little to do with the storyline, but it offers the most humorous aspect of this average tale.
Hannah remains too superficial to ever be engaging. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4597-3160-8
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Dundurn
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
