Acutely perceptive and crystal clear; deeply attuned to kids' feelings yet cool-eyed and shrewd; and, to boot, a solidly realized story propelled by original, huggably vulnerable characters: This story of a shallow, career-minded country singer's three motherless kids is just what a children's novel should be. Retta (for Loretta Lynn) has raised her brothers since their singer mother was killed in a plane crash; and she takes her role as mother hen and recreation director with fierce solemnity. Bossy, she turns them out at midnight (their father is off performing) to steal swims in a neighboring colonel's pool. ("We're going to do all the things rich people do. Only we have to do them at night, that's the only difference.") But Retta's control slips when brother Johnny—bursting with self-satisfaction and the certainty of her chagrin-makes a friend. (Not just any friend, but a boy who makes and flies his own airplanes, with radio controls.) Soon, Retta has lost her puppeteer's hold on Roy, the youngest, to the glamour of Johnny's friend. Moody and undone, she follows the boys and spies on them, fired by motherly concern (as she insists) but also seething with jealousy like the child she is and the power-player she is becoming. When Retta slips out one night on Johnny's tail, Roy ends up, panicked, in the pool. The colonel rescues him and summons their father, who arrives home in his pink velour cowboy suit; and in the ensuing showdown Retta "felt as bewildered as a child whose dolls have come to life and are demanding real attention." Though this is Retta's story, each of her brothers has his spotlit moments. "Invisible" Johnny's late-blooming sense of self is heartening to behold; and Roy, indicatively, is touchingly disabused of a running fantasy about an offstage, odiferous plant. (They should shut it down, says Retta, but Roy has envisioned chopping it down.) Retta, shocked into self-awareness by the pool incident and by Johnny's friend's challenge ("and do you think for them too?"), is eased into letting go by the sympathetic guidance of her father's girlfriend Brendelie—who shows signs of relieving Retta by marrying into the family. Byars takes us all into the family, and puts us in touch with the humanity behind the tacky (father), the officious (Retta), and the invisible among us.
Pub Date: April 30, 1980
ISBN: 0174324308
Page Count: 113
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980
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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