A cozy comic mystery in which 13-year-old Amy Whipple is corralled by the wealthy Wylies to pinch-hit as babysitter. Eight-year-old Malcolm Wylie's mother warns Amy that he's ``blessed with a very active imagination'' and ``loves to spin stories''; when he charges ahead to the park and then claims that he's witnessed a classmate's kidnapping in a black limo, Amy is naturally skeptical. Malcolm's father doesn't believe his story, nor do Amy's father (in the delicate position of working for Mr. Wylie) or the police, who remember Malcolm's previous crime reports. However, one ransom note leads to another, evidence mounts, and, devilishly, Malcolm blackmails Amy into cooperating with his investigation. Before long, the two have baited the suspected kidnappers and are tailing them (at night, by moped) to a hideout where bratty, rich little Jennifer Smith is making her abductors' lives miserable. The kidnappers are cartoonishly dense and argumentative, albeit menacing; but Jennifer and Malcolm are so daring and clever that the rescue—involving laundry and garbage trucks and Jennifer's stunned chauffeur—is suspenseful as well as funny. Malcolm learns the lesson of the boy who cried wolf, he and Amy become friends, and Jennifer-the-Jerk—well, she's lucky anybody bothered to save her. A pleasantly thrilling escapade, with some minor implausibilities and only the threat of violence. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: June 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-86578-1
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
This profoundly moving story is all the more impressive because of its basis in fact. Although the story is fictionalized, its most harrowing aspects are true: “Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are ‘economically active’ in the world.” Iqbal Masih, a real boy, was murdered at age 13. His killers have never been found, but it’s believed that a cartel of ruthless people overseeing the carpet industry, the “Carpet Mafia,” killed him. The carpet business in Pakistan is the backdrop for the story of a young Pakistani girl in indentured servitude to a factory owner, who also “owned” the bonds of 14 children, indentured by their own families for sorely needed money. Fatima’s first-person narrative grips from the beginning and inspires with every increment of pride and resistance the defiant Iqbal instills in his fellow workers. Although he was murdered for his efforts, Iqbal’s life was not in vain; the accounts here of children who were liberated through his and activist adults’ efforts will move readers for years to come. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85445-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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