Labored, particularly at the end, but daffy enough to fly.
Adventures and shattered illusions lead to true friendship in this tale of a chicken and a quick-talking worm.
Readers will just have to go with parts of this. Marcus the worm’s dreams of flying are interrupted when he’s suddenly dumped from a “Can-O-Worm” into the bowl of a chicken with “intense and menacing eyes.” Impulsively offering a cheery greeting, Marcus manages to stave off his imminent demise by engaging the easily distracted chicken—Laurence, it turns out—in conversation. It so happens that Laurence, convinced that he’s actually a flamingo, yearns to fly to Kenya’s Lake Nakuru National Park to join others of his supposed ilk. Marcus strings him along, and soon bird and worm are winging off on a tiring if truncated journey, highlighted by encounters with supposedly foreign earthworms with peculiar customs and a friendly squirrel with “terrible teeth” but great dance moves. Marcus’ gift of gab (plus a vaguely recalled anecdote featuring Robert the Bruce and a persistent spider) repeatedly comes in handy until Laurence’s dismal discovery that he isn’t anything like the local zoo’s real flamingos clears the way for professions of mutual friendship and heavy-handed ruminations on how kindness and respect lie at friendship’s heart. Lia adds very simply drawn pink and gray figures to nearly every generously spaced page of this quixotic episode.
Labored, particularly at the end, but daffy enough to fly. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9536-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
This gentle effort will leave engaged readers purring contentedly.
Calico kitten Elvis is adopted from the animal shelter, but his beloved sister, Etta, is left behind.
Narrator Elvis is intended to be a comfort for his new human owner, 10-year-old Georgina, who’s trying to adjust to her parents’ recent breakup. She’s busy crafting intricate Lego buildings with the help of her clever hamster, Mo, as her rather clueless mother tries to push her into more sociable pursuits. Mo does his best to help Elvis fit into his new family, but the kitten is desperate to return to the shelter to reunite with Etta. The second cat in his new household is little help; grouchy Clementine, another rescue, has issues of her own that are gradually revealed. After a couple of failed escape attempts, Elvis finally finds a way to communicate his fervent wish to Georgina, using Lego bricks. In her debut, Riddiough has lovingly crafted a group of fully realized animal characters—even a fish—as well as three sometimes-mystifying humans, all of whom share their hopes and tribulations and demonstrate that not all happy families look alike. Georgina gradually comes to accept the changes in her life in a bittersweet conclusion. Expressive soft-focus illustrations throughout the text add to the charm, bringing the characters and their emotions to life in a way that tugs at the heartstrings. Georgina and her parents read as White.
This gentle effort will leave engaged readers purring contentedly. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-5239-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Quietly and emotionally intelligent, this tale satisfies.
An ant farm adopted as a summer project becomes a means of healing.
Harvard and little brother Roger Corson’s pediatrician father hasn’t been the same since the mistake that killed a baby in his care five months ago. Hoping to find his center again, Dad decides to take the boys to his childhood home, the rural, inland Maine town of Kettle Hole, for the summer. They’re renting the home of one of Dad’s oldest friends, Mr. Knowles, who’s struggling to pay his deceased wife’s medical bills and has moved with his daughter, Neveah, into their barn. Ten-year-old Harvard quickly befriends aspiring poet Nevaeh, also 10, who writes poems and has asthma. When the mail-order ants intended for the ant farm Dad builds arrive dead—a fact Harvard is desperate to conceal from Dad—Nevaeh helps Harvard populate it with the carpenter ants somehow only they see marching through the house. As the summer progresses, Harvard learns about ants and tries to help his father heal. Harvard’s sensitive narration grounds readers as they navigate difficult emotional terrain, the authentically rendered setting providing a gently evocative backdrop. Culley neatly explores hard topics such as parental depression and financial precarity within a plot ever so slightly tinged with fantasy. Harvard and Roger are biracial; their mother is of Dominican heritage and their father’s White, like the Knowleses and most other residents of Kettle Hole.
Quietly and emotionally intelligent, this tale satisfies. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-17577-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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