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DO THE HOKEY POKEY

Name: DO THE HOKEY POKEY
Author: Alison McDonough
ISBN: 0-8126-2699-0

by Alison McDonough & illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2001

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A shy fifth-grader has a hard-enough time getting by in his new school on his own, but his mother's new career as an events DJ threatens to undermine what little respect he may have earned from his classmates. Brendan Breen (one of his mother's many faults is a penchant for alliterative names) knows that his mother's appearance at the school's Music and Munchies Night will ruin his life forever, but none of his plans to prevent it work: his aunt refuses to feign a deathly illness on the day of the event; his mother rejects his suggestion that she use a different name; and she is downright offended when he brings home a wig so she will be unrecognizable. Predictably, Music and Munchies Night is an unqualified success, and Brendan even survives—and enjoys—doing the hokey-pokey. Wound around this plot is Brendan's slow integration into the classroom culture via a group project, and his ultimate discovery that he himself is something of a showman. Newcomer McDonough has crafted a comfortable, if thoroughly predictable, tale about fitting in, presenting a world in which the worst possible thing that can happen is embarrassment. The book seems unsure of its audience: Urbanovic's spot black-and-white cartoons are very young-looking and pigeonhole it squarely for younger readers, but the font size and relative denseness of text make it look older and somewhat more forbidding than the average early chapter book. There are some mildly amusing moments, but this ultimately superficial story does nothing particularly new. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: April 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-8126-2699-0

Page Count: 120

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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RETURN TO SENDER

by Julia Alvarez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 13, 2009

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.

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Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.

Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)