Guinevere St. Clair is indeed 100 percent unforgettable.
If Scout Finch had had a sister, she would be future “world-famous lawyer” Guinevere St. Clair.
When Guinevere, now 10, was 4, her mother, Vienna, lost all memory of her life after the age of 13, and now, believing she is 13, often acts like a difficult older sister. Jed, Gwyn’s father, has relocated the family to Crow, Iowa, where he and Vienna grew up, hoping that the familiar surroundings will help her regain her memory. Iowa is a world away from Gwyn’s beloved New York City. People greet one another on the street, it’s always quiet, and it smells like cows. And speaking of cows, Guinevere gets her very own registered bovine, whom she names Willowdale Princess Deon Dawn. (Sadly, her plan to ride Willowdale like a horse doesn’t work out.) Not long after the St. Clairs arrive, Gaysie Cutter tries to bury Guinevere alive—at least that’s how the imaginative Gwyn sees it. When a local farmer goes missing, Guinevere puts on her lawyer hat to investigate. She’s certain short-fused, unpredictable Gaysie murdered him. She just has to prove it, but it won’t be easy, because it seems as though everyone in seemingly all-white Crow has a secret. With the same nostalgia-tinged humor as Dead End in Norvelt and A Long Way from Chicago, Makechnie’s debut will have readers in stitches. Gwyn’s voice is distinct and likable, carrying readers through the eventful narrative with ease.
Guinevere St. Clair is indeed 100 percent unforgettable. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1446-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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