A stolen rabbit connects three neglected children and a pair of young sleuths in this busy, overpopulated story from Conly (Crazy Lady, 1993, etc.). Bad-news cousin Wayne leads Earl Foster, 11, and his learning-disabled brother, Frankie, into an affluent neighborhood on another bike-stealing expedition; Frankie carries away a pet rabbit, instead sneaking it into the house where he and his siblings live with Aunt Lula until their father, laid-off, can get back on his feet. Addie, the rabbit’s devastated owner, gets little help from police, but finds an unexpected ally in her neighbor, Maynard, a lonely adopted classmate born in India. While the two are gathering clues, Aunt Lula vanishes, leaving Earl to care for his two siblings as best he can. Conly develops her story at a deliberate pace, splitting the point-of-view among no fewer than five characters. Angela, a bedwetter with a broken yardstick for a magic wand and an unfettered imagination, makes the rest of the cast seem generic; a pivotal scene is farfetched at best, and a wonderfully tidy resolution that finds Addie with her rabbit, the Fosters with their father, and Wayne in jail is equally contrived. The book is readable, but the capable Conly uses artifice to bring the plotlines together, and the Fosters are not as memorable as the abandoned children in Cynthia Voigt’s Homecoming (1981) or Jackie Koller’s A Place to Call Home (1995) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-3934-1
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Witty repartee between the central characters, as well as the occasional well-done set piece, isn’t enough to hold this hefty debut together. Teenagers Seth and Kendra are dropped off by traveling parents at their grandfather’s isolated Connecticut estate, and soon discover why he’s so reluctant to have them—the place is a secret haven for magical creatures, both benign and decidedly otherwise. Those others are held in check by a complicated, unwritten and conveniently malleable Compact that is broken on Midsummer Eve, leaving everyone except Kendra captive in a hidden underground chamber with a newly released demon. Mull’s repeated use of the same device to prod the plot along comes off as more labored than comic: Over and over an adult issues a stern but vague warning; Seth ignores it; does some mischief and is sorry afterward. Sometimes Kendra joins in trying to head off her uncommonly dense brother. She comes into her own at the rousing climax, but that takes a long time to arrive; stick with Michael Buckley’s “Sisters Grimm” tales, which carry a similar premise in more amazing and amusing directions. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59038-581-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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