Fresh from an encounter with ghost mastodons (Six Haunted Hairdos, 1997), Miss Earth’s fifth-grade class readily takes on a new challenge in this eccentric holiday story from Maguire. When Mayor Timothy Grass disappears, all of Hamlet, Vermont, is abuzz with rumors; in Miss Earth’s class opinion is about evenly divided between the Tattletales (girls), who think he fell into a time warp, and the Copycats (boys), who blame Bigfoot. Neutral Pearl Hotchkiss’s suggestion that he was abducted by aliens is discounted, but she’s right. Having glimpsed a Christmas movie on the visor screen before their crash landing, five aliens from planet Fixipuddle are out to free the slaves from “Santa Claw’s” workshop and end his evil domination of the world; when Mayor Grass strolls by, still in his Santa suit from a school visit, they tie him up and apply tickle torture to make him reveal the location of his Fortress of Fear (the workshop). After an unsuccessful attempt to disguise themselves as Keebler-style elves, the aliens recruit Lois Kennedy’s beagle, Reebok, to spy for them, equipping him with a universal translator that allows him to talk. Their mistake: Reebok’s a double agent. The Tattletales and Copycats accept Reebok’s story, put aside all rivalries, and spring into action, converting the classroom into a “workshop” of broken toys for the aliens to “liberate.” This clever comedy, with humor both broad and sly, has the odd combination of hilariously fractious aliens and a generous measure of Christmas cheer—but it works. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1998
ISBN: 0-395-83894-0
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that...
Antics both instructive and embarrassing ensue after a mysterious package left on their doorstep brings a Founding Father into the lives of two modern children.
Summoned somehow by what looks for all the world like an old-time crystal radio set, Ben Franklin turns out to be an amiable sort. He is immediately taken in hand by 7-year-old Olive for a tour of modern wonders—early versions of which many, from electrical appliances in the kitchen to the Illinois town’s public library and fire department, he justly lays claim to inventing. Meanwhile big brother Nolan, 10, tags along, frantic to return him to his own era before either their divorced mom or snoopy classmate Tommy Tuttle sees him. Fleming, author of Ben Franklin’s Almanac (2003) (and also, not uncoincidentally considering the final scene of this outing, Our Eleanor, 2005), mixes history with humor as the great man dispenses aphorisms and reminiscences through diverse misadventures, all of which end well, before vanishing at last. Following a closing, sequel-cueing kicker (see above) she then separates facts from fancies in closing notes, with print and online leads to more of the former. To go with spot illustrations of the evidently all-white cast throughout the narrative, Fearing incorporates change-of-pace sets of sequential panels for Franklin’s biographical and scientific anecdotes. Final illustrations not seen.
It’s not the first time old Ben has paid our times a call, but it’s funny and free-spirited, with an informational load that adds flavor without weight. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93406-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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