Van Draanen's first book has a crackling pace, funny lines, and an iron-willed heroine with a knack for putting herself in the center of all the action. Sixth-grader Carolyn doesn't act like a girl, and doesn't look much like one either, clad in boys clothing and wearing her hair very short. She likes to spy on the neighbors with her two brothers, play stickball, and dig foxholes in the backyard. Of girls who play with dolls and wear too much lace, she has low opinions, and hardly counts herself in the girl camp at all until some unfamiliar feelings surface for her stickball buddy, Charlie. When her baby sister, Nancy, is born, Carolyn decides that being a girl is really okay, now that she has an ally in the family. The era in which the story takes place is never specified, and while Carolyn's voice is contemporary, some of the problems she faces are dated, e.g., having to wear a dress to school and being unable to have her own paper route because she is a girl. Regardless, her irreverent narration is engaging and she's refreshingly astute about family and neighborhood dynamics. Blithely entertaining. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: March 31, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-026671-6
Page Count: 163
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At Lauer Middle School, an invitation to join “The Legend,” a supersecret group that plans community-service projects, is the most exciting honor imaginable. Seventh grader Travis Raines isn’t particularly brainy; he excels at getting into innocent trouble. He’s also pretty good at getting out of it. When a shiny blue envelope appears in his locker with a brainteaser and a set of rules, Travis can’t believe The Legend wants him. As usual, he ends up getting in his own way and runs afoul of the vice-principal in charge of discipline. Can he follow all the rules while navigating the seven levels of induction into The Legend and find out who keeps trying to get him in deeper trouble? Feldman’s second puzzlecentric effort is a mixed bag at best (The Gollywhopper Games, 2008). The mostly dull plot hangs on coincidence and isn’t saved by the seemingly random puzzles, some of which are anything but puzzling. Moreover, Travis’s distracting, vigorous and entirely un–seventh grader–like use of the word “oaf” defies credibility. Give your brainteaser fans Carey Benedict’s The Unknowns (2009) instead. (Mystery. 8-11)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-195105-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
Alastair McKnight has just sabotaged his own summer plans by breaking his collarbone while careening along on a ``dog-powered skateboard train.'' Chafing at his confinement, he's delighted to find a tiny four-pound dragon, eating Mom's petunias. Alastair hides little ``Spike'' in his room, discovers that he's vegetarian, researches dragons in library books (could this benign specimen be Chinese?), and uses a mop to disguise Spike as a dog in order to walk him—his droppings are peculiarly noxious. Eventually, the secret comes out, but researcher Uncle George- -with whom Alastair has been in correspondence—turns up just in time to guarantee that Alastair gets to keep his unusual pet. A simple story, but Seabrooke (the widely praised Judy Scuppernong, 1990, etc.) tells it with humor and imagination, providing plenty of amusing details—especially the antics of Spike, a kittenish creature who bursts into flame only occasionally and, luckily, doesn't grow at all. Appealing fantasy in a briskly drawn realistic setting. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: April 29, 1992
ISBN: 0-399-22115-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
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