Emma enjoys her friends in the projects, but her family's three-bedroom apartment is too small and they can't have pets. She's tired of sharing a room with messy younger sister Janie; toddler brother Nick annoys her. Impatiently, she anticipates the day their savings will make her dream come true—a house where she can have a puppy. When her parents tell her there is going to be a new baby, her feelings are a mixture of excitement and disappointment as the dream recedes once again. At least the baby can share her room if they get bunk beds, but even that hope is dashed when her father says they can't afford it. Emma yells, ``I hate you!''; then a friend tells Emma about buying secondhand, and Emma tells her father. Later she writes him a loving note, and her parents tell her that they plan to get secondhand bunk beds. Baker sensitively portrays the ardent hopes, enthusiasms, and disappointments of a nine-year-old in this warm story of a loving working-class family reaching for the American dream. A welcome change from tales about upper-middle-class professionals. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-525-44771-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1991
Trickling, bubbling, swirling, rushing, a river flows down from its mountain beginnings, past peaceful country and bustling city on its way to the sea. Hooper (The Drop in My Drink, 1998, etc.) artfully evokes the water’s changing character as it transforms from “milky-cold / rattling-bold” to a wide, slow “sliding past mudflats / looping through marshes” to the end of its journey. Willey, best known for illustrating Geraldine McCaughrean’s spectacular folk-tale collections, contributes finely detailed scenes crafted in shimmering, intricate blues and greens, capturing mountain’s chill, the bucolic serenity of passing pastures, and a sense of mystery in the water’s shadowy depths. Though Hooper refers to “the cans and cartons / and bits of old wood” being swept along, there’s no direct conservation agenda here (for that, see Debby Atwell’s River, 1999), just appreciation for the river’s beauty and being. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0792-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
McDonald’s irrepressible third-grader (Judy Moody Gets Famous, 2001, etc.) takes a few false steps before hitting full stride. This time, not only has her genius little brother Stink submitted a competing entry in the Crazy Strips Band-Aid design contest, but in the wake of her science teacher’s heads-up about rainforest destruction and endangered animals, she sees every member of her family using rainforest products. It’s all more than enough to put her in a Mood, which gets her in trouble at home for letting Stink’s pet toad, Toady, go free, and at school for surreptitiously collecting all the pencils (made from rainforest cedar) in class. And to top it off, Stink’s Crazy Strips entry wins a prize, while she gets . . . a certificate. Chronicled amusingly in Reynolds’s frequent ink-and-tea drawings, Judy goes from pillar to post—but she justifies the pencil caper convincingly enough to spark a bottle drive that nets her and her classmates not only a hundred seedling trees for Costa Rica, but the coveted school Giraffe Award (given to those who stick their necks out), along with T-shirts and ice cream coupons. Judy’s growing corps of fans will crow “Rare!” right along with her. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7636-1446-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
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