Willow, the second-person narrator in Thorn (2005), determines to leave the village of the People of the Singing Seals before the male elders give her to one of the “Uncles” (all elder males are uncles) in their desperate hope to produce healthy babies. The plot is driven by Willow’s need to be free of her clan and their desperation. Her single-minded trek forces her through the emergent winter; she is supported by the knowledge and skills she developed in her tomboy years and a last-minute gift from a village boy. This book’s worldbuilding is firmly rooted in Thorn’s island home, and a chance meeting with one of the greatly feared Others fills in facts about the missing history and challenges the tenets of her upbringing. Themes examined in this novel include the reconciliation of friendship with independence and the obligation to challenge falsity in word and deed. This exciting read can stand on its own but will also appeal to readers of the first book and of Lois Lowry’s Giver and companions. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60819-097-0
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unfortunate Events galore, served with relish.
The creator of such picture books as Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance (1999) and Three Nasty Gnarlies (2003) dishes up a first novel seasoned with the same delightfully twisted, ghoulish sensibility.
Immediately upon arriving in Awkward Falls, a small Manitoba town known for its canned sauerkraut and its Asylum for the Dangerously Insane (“both,” notes the narrator, “to be avoided at all costs, as one was likely to cause gas, and the other, death.”), 12-year-old Josephine meets agemate Thaddeus Hibble. Thaddeus is a scientific genius who has lived alone since infancy on an all–junk-food diet supplied by a robot butler and paid for by re-animating the dead pets of local matrons. Together the two are plunged into personal danger and worse at the clutching hands of hunchbacked lunatic cannibal Fetid Stenchley, former lab assistant and Asylum escapee. With aid from a supporting cast of colorful locals, a half-rotted corpse brought back to partial life and a ravening herd of chimerical monsters created in a secret biotechnology lab, Graves crafts a quick-moving plot composed of macabre twists. These are made all the ickier for being presented in significant part from Stenchley’s point of view. Wordless opening and closing sequences, plus a handful of interior illustrations, both fill in background detail and intensify the overall macabre atmosphere. The central characters receive just, if, under the circumstances, not necessarily final deserts.
Unfortunate Events galore, served with relish. (finished illustrations not seen) (Melodrama. 11-13)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7814-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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