Five seventh-grade winners of a writing competition are required to form a creative writing workshop where their diversity—which at first makes them unwilling, even hostile, collaborators—eventually draws them together as friends. For protagonist Libby, who is the granddaughter of a famous local novelist—and who has been taught at home until this year when her remarkable family of five adults has decided that it's time for her to be "socialized"—each of the others is a threat: G.G., whose bullying is paralleled by the violence in his stories; Alex, who can't "write" and goes to a special class, but who proves to be a gifted satirist; obstreperous, punk Tierney, whose hard-boiled detective stories aren't meant to be parodies; even cheerleader Wendy, who writes trite romances but whose niceness turns out to be real. As the five learn to give and accept constructive criticism, they also begin to respect each other's gifts; by the time their advisor is hospitalized, the group has become so important that they continue meeting privately, in the fabulous treehouse built by Libby's granddad. The characters here are pungent and believable, their interaction well-realized. Revealing details—Libby's extensive collections, kept in the servants' quarters of the old family mansion; the stories read at the workshop sessions—meld with a carefully paced story that comes to a climax when the others dramatically rescue G.G. from his abusive father, but that also thoughtfully explores the enriching value of diversity—and demonstrates, along the way, how to use words to reflect it. A grand, multileveled novel.
Pub Date: March 1, 1990
ISBN: 0440404983
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wonderful, indeed
A love song to baby with delightful illustrations to boot.
Sweet but not saccharine and singsong but not forced, Martin’s text is one that will invite rereadings as it affirms parental wishes for children while admirably keeping child readers at its heart. The lines that read “This is the first time / There’s ever been you, / So I wonder what wonderful things / You will do” capture the essence of the picture book and are accompanied by a diverse group of babies and toddlers clad in downright adorable outfits. Other spreads include older kids, too, and pictures expand on the open text to visually interpret the myriad possibilities and hopes for the depicted children. For example, a spread reading “Will you learn how to fly / To find the best view?” shows a bespectacled, school-aged girl on a swing soaring through an empty white background. This is just one spread in which Martin’s fearless embrace of the white of the page serves her well. Throughout the book, she maintains a keen balance of layout choices, and surprising details—zebras on the wallpaper behind a father cradling his child, a rock-’n’-roll band of mice paralleling the children’s own band called “The Missing Teeth”—add visual interest and gentle humor. An ideal title for the baby-shower gift bag and for any nursery bookshelf or lap-sit storytime.
Wonderful, indeed . (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37671-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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