Since 1977, ``Helping Hands'' has been training capuchin monkeys as assistants to quadriplegics. Briefly summarizing the program's genesis as the idea of psychologist Dr. Mary Joan Willard, Haldane describes the monkeys' upbringing (they spend four years in a foster home before formal training begins), their education, and their capabilities (they can not only fetch small objects but perform more complex tasks like inserting computer discs). Much of the book is devoted to the monkey Willie and her introduction to Greg, a teenager whose quadriplegia is the result of a diving accident. In addition to detailing the ways Willie aids Greg, Haldane points out how great the emotional support of such animal friends can be, and how their presence can also lead to approaches by people who might otherwise hesitate to speak to someone in a wheelchair. The many b&w photos effectively convey the range of Willie's help and the appeal of the intelligent, mischievous, hard-working capuchins. An excellent report on a relatively new program. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-525-44723-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
Readers may wonder if they really needed a poem for every day of the school year.
This novel in verse is a remarkable feat of mimicry. The poems sound exactly like they were written by real fifth-graders.
Ms. Hill’s students, a diverse bunch judging by their names and their pictures, are required to write a poem every morning. (They listen to folk music while they’re writing, which says a lot about Ms. Hill.) One Seuss-inspired poem includes the stanza “Some kids are glad and some are sad. / You sit by Teacher. Were you bad?” That level of authenticity is hard to take unless it reveals something about the characters’ personalities. Happily, many of the students are worth getting to know, like Newt Mathews, a boy with Asperger’s who rescues the frogs hiding in the school’s back brick wall. Their story is compelling enough: as the title hints, the students are trying to prevent their school from being torn down. But too much of the plot feels conventional. When a student gets a crush on a girl who claims to hate him, some readers will pray that they don’t fall in love. The last section of the book is full of lovely, inventive moments. A set of instructions for making a flipbook somehow becomes a metaphor for loss. But too many poems—especially a bad parody of “Big Yellow Taxi”—simply don’t work.
Readers may wonder if they really needed a poem for every day of the school year. (glossary, guide to poetic forms) (Verse novel. 8-12)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-52137-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he’ll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he’s being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate’s, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the “slacker” will be waiting for rescue around the next bend—and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark’s neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen’s or Will Hobbs’s more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain—at length—everyone’s history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy—but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers’ ability to figure out for themselves what’s going on in each character’s life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-82596-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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