Although amusing, this story never quite reaches the level of funny, but it’s well-meaning and enjoyable.
A not-so-lightweight tale rises above drag jokes to reveal surprising profundity.
At first bite, this lightly humorous novel about two sixth-grade boys infiltrating the Cupcake Cadets (think Girl Scouts) to win a $500 prize seems to be going for cringe comedy, heavy on the gag aspects of boys wearing girls’ clothing. But once the guys actually join the troop and discover that they can pass, the story becomes a richer, more layered confection. Jeremy Bender loves boats and dreams of piloting his father’s beloved Chris-Craft. But when he and his best friend, Slater Stevenson, accidentally ruin the engine, Jeremy has to come up with big bucks to fix it. That’s when he gets his big, albeit crazy idea—join the Cupcake Cadets and win their Windjammer Whirl, a model sailboat race. It’s a hubris-filled plan with multiple pitfalls, and Jeremy and Slater fall into every one. Life lessons are learned, as the disasters prompt not only a renewed determination in our heroes, but also better planning and forethought, which are largely seen as female virtues. A subplot about a school bully who just happens to be the troop leader’s son adds flavor, as does a determined, hardworking Cadet’s discovery of their not-so-little secret.
Although amusing, this story never quite reaches the level of funny, but it’s well-meaning and enjoyable. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-201512-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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