In this sequel to Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo (1992), Winton continues to chronicle the tempestuous life of 13-year-old Lockie, Australian surfer kid and lover. Lockie keeps falling in love, this time with a girl who’s a better surfer than he is, and who, to his embarrassment, is 11. He is responsible when his unlikely new best friend and minister’s son, Egg, gets into metal music and all-black clothing. The ostensible plot involves Lockie and Egg’s attempts to prod their indifferent town into cleaning up the nauseating pollution in their harbor. That easily won environmental battle is the only part of the book that doesn’t work, but Winton’s quirky characterizations fuel the real thrust of the book: laugh-out-loud scenes as Lockie struggles with being 13. Winton knows surfing, understands adolescence, and exhibits great comic pacing; he’s a flat-out good writer, and this is a flat-out funny book. (Fiction. 8-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-82247-2
Page Count: 140
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
James, ten, makes the most of a sudden chance to run with the big boys in this hard-fought game of playground basketball. Stepping onto the main court and told to guard Marcus, a head taller and hard as a rock, James looks bad at first; his uncertainty fades as he gets into the rhythm of the game, and at last it’s his shot that makes the winning point. Coy (Night Driving, 1996) tells the tale in unslangy prose, with brief bursts of dialogue and short, precise descriptions. The text is printed in a typeface aptly named “Blur Light,” with chosen words in different sizes and colors. It’s an engrossing, if overdesigned, debut for Jean-Bart; the full-color photograph-and-scratchboard collage illustrations, whose roughly inked edges give them an unfinished look, interpret the action literally, in a far more successful evocation of the game’s look and feel than that found in Charles R. Smith’s Rimshots (1999). In the end, James slaps Marcus’s hand, then proudly turns to face the next quartet of challengers. Cleanly compelling. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 1-880000-80-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
In a shelled, rubble-strewn city, women and children huddle indoors and wait—for the war to be over, for the men to come home, for the fear to end. When even the slight lift brought by the weekly arrival of relief supplies is taken away by the bombing of the delivery truck, irascible old Mr. O calmly steps out into the open and, despite the danger, sits down to play Bach on his magnificent cello. Cutler (’Gator Aid, p. 1131, etc.) has fashioned a simply told, powerfully evoked tale of music and courage; in somber watercolors lit by abstract swirls of color, Couch places the young narrator and her neighbor amidst shattered buildings beneath overcast skies. Not even the destruction of his cello stops Mr. O from continuing to deliver his gift; out of his pocket comes a harmonica, and the music soars again. Though the setting and characters have a modern, European look, neither locale nor enemy is specified, or, in fact, relevant. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46119-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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