Cooper, who's been alternating between standup comic Kimmey Kruse's adventures in Chicago (Funny as a Dead Comic, 1993) and down-home sagebrush mysteries (Dead Moon on the Rise, p. 247), gets a chance to fire both barrels at once when a hurry call to her ailing grandfather's bedside sends Kimmey home to Port Arthur, Tex. Aside from his longtime estrangement from Kimmey's grandmother, Me- Maw, there's nothing wrong with Paw-Paw's broken leg that time and better cooking than Kimmey's won't fix. But the family reunion among Me-Maw's relatives, the Foret sisters, isn't so benign: Leticia DuBois, with whom Me-Maw's been feuding for 45 years, has a fatally allergic reaction to a wasp sting. When Kimmey finds a jar containing two dead wasps in Leticia's car, she tells the police Leticia was murdered, but they're just as hostile as Leticia's son Willard, the hunkiest man Kimmey's ever met. Between the pressure she's getting from Barbara Sue Blanton, the wild child corseted into Bible-thumping by her charismatic Baptist preacher husband, and from Sal Pucci, the police detective who's followed her, uninvited, down from Chicago to look into the case, ingratiate himself with her relatives, and whisper lewd somethings into her ear, the big question isn't whether Kimmey can find Armand DuBois, the wastrel who broke his engagement to Barbara Sue to marry Leticia—and then reportedly ran off with one of the Foret girls- -it's how many days Kimmey can survive the engorged bosom of her family. An affectionate portrait of Kimmey's wacky East Texas relatives: a short take too smart to overstay its welcome.
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-11438-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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