Whimsy gone wrong.
Henry Cicada’s dream is to be ordinary and unnoticed, but he learns that sometimes being yourself is much better than being invisible.
With his bald head and his bright-green, size–14-1/2 high tops, Henry is far from ordinary. But even with those strikes against him, his dream still has a chance. At least until he decides to stand up to the school bully, to adopt a three-legged puppy, and to travel across 40-odd dimensions in a reality-bending doghouse. There, he enters the imagination of Lulu, a girl in desperate need of a friend. Henry and his father are themselves floundering following the death of Henry’s mother. Henry copes by trying to be ordinary. His father spends every waking moment trying to make something useful from Elktonium, his late wife’s discovery. As Henry defends Lulu and his fellow students, he discovers a foundational truth: helping someone else in pain can make one’s own pain a bit easier to bear. While the underlying messages are solid, the constant barrage of wackiness robs Henry’s story of much of its power. The discussion of death, emotional abuse, and grief amid lame jokes, bizarre characters, and a peculiar setting is more off-putting than humorous.
Whimsy gone wrong. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-237745-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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