About the daydreams indulged in by Warren, who lives with his grandmother and his older (high-school) sister Weezie because his mother is a fugitive. Always an activist for peace, the environment, and other such causes, Warren's mother fell in with a Weathermen-type group and has been wanted by the FBI since Warren was five. He still longs for her and fantasizes about their reunion; but it soon becomes clear that, as Weezie well knows, their mother's commitments don't extend to her children. Meanwhile, Warren gluts out on horror films and fills his time, in class and elsewhere, inventing them. Much of the book, too, is filled with Warren's highly inventive scenarios-especially the one about Bubbles, the two-thousand-pound goldfish at large in the sewers, which Warren finishes triumphantly, but just a little regretfully, as the book ends. By then, his grandmother has died (an aunt will move in to take her place) and Warren has burst into tears at the cemetery—not in mourning for his grandmother, but because he finally realizes that his mother will not show up. From that point, it's just a few steps—talks with Weezie, who is bravely realistic but still hurt, and an unsatisfactory phone conversation with his mother (she has called, Weezie informs him, five times in three years)—until Warren, disabused of the more impeding daydream of his mother's return, decides to give up the others too. Still, he allows himself an out: the goldfish, hilariously flushed out to sea, has left a giant egg behind. And that's fine, because Warren's films are highly entertaining. The interlocking fantasies and Warren's liberation from them may be a little too neat, and his mother seems less an individual than a type Byars wants to comment on. But Weezie is a touching character, the grandmother a vivid caricature, and Warren's screenplays give him the starch he needs as a character too.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1982
ISBN: 0064408558
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1982
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
