The Snob Squad is back (Revenge of the Snob Squad, 1998) and this time the four elementary-age outcasts need to come up with a project for the science fair. Although, in this group, science is nobody’s best subject, a rat that Max captured in her family’s junkyard provides inspiration, and they create an obstacle course for a study in rat motivation. It doesn’t take Jenny—whose wry, wisecracking first-person narration is even funnier in this book—long to figure out that what motivates the rat is the same thing that motivates her: food. She’s secretly sweet on Kevin Rooney, a fact that provides some counter- motivation; meanwhile, shy Prairie confesses that she likes computer-geek Hugh Torkerson. The squad rallies, especially since Hugh and Kevin are on a science-fair team with the girls’ rivals, Ashley and Melanie. The book becomes strained when the problems become more serious; Jenny, the squad’s leader, has a dysfunctional family, with estranged parents and an obsessive-compulsive, anorexic sister. The glib tone never meshes with such somber material, and the resolutions come abruptly. Fortunately, the characters, already solidly realized previously, are even better developed this time around, while the sweetly awkward first-time alliances with members of the opposite sex are nicely done. Most readers will skate over the rough spots for this well-paced novel and its many funny moments. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-70627-2
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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