As the only Glory who can't sing—instead, she sells the Glory Gospel Singers' tapes and records after performances by the rest of the family—Anna has some reason to feel like a Cinderella. Lovely Angel with her golden hair is lead singer and clearly the family favorite; and younger twins Matthew and Joshua, hellions who compete for emergency-room stitches when not singing and playing the drums, get more than their share of attention. "You've had your last stitch, Joshua, you hear me?" says the father after Joshua is almost scalped in a daredevil bike accident. The mother is notable chiefly for her six-inch beehive hairdo, and the father, a cozy down-home Christian on the stage, is not to be tangled with. "When anybody saw Mr. Glory in a rage, they never doubted that people had evolved from animals." Such a rage is induced by the news that Mr. Glory's brother Newt is at large and in need of a home after serving seven years for bank robbery. (He had taken along a bowlegged partner who was easily recognizable despite the stocking masks.) Though she has never met him, and though she learns that, unlike herself, he can sing, Anna "had started to feel a kinship with Uncle Newt that surprised her. She couldn't explain it. She didn't feel that way about the members of her own family." Oddly, when the family goes to meet Newt's bus, he isn't on it; but later Angel and Anna spot him here and there, as if he's following the family. One night, unknown to their father, Uncle Newt is in the pizza restaurant where Mr. Glory puts down two "punks" (his words) who try to pick up Angel. The two boys, insulted, follow the Glory bus and bump it off the road, touching off a scene of cool, slow-motion terror that is described with even more stark clarity than was Joshua's earlier bike accident. Not surprisingly, Uncle Newt is there to carry out a heroic rescue of the whole unconscious or incapacitated flock. The shy Newt won't stay around to be thanked and welcomed into the family, but Anna is left with memories of a few brief encounters; his words, "You're the best of the bunch," echo in her mind. Again Byars gives us a gratifying and entertaining picture of a solid, solitary kid coming into her own through the odd interactions of an unglamorous, snappily projected family.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1983
ISBN: 0844670235
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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