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BIG NATE ON A ROLL

Name: BIG NATE ON A ROLL
Author: Lincoln Peirce
ISBN: 978-0-06-194438-3

From the Big Nate series , Vol. 3

by Lincoln Peirce & illustrated by Lincoln Peirce ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 2011

On a roll indeed!

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Sixth grader Nate Wright needs a new skateboard…but more than that he needs to beat perfect Artur at SOMETHING.

Artur has a nifty foreign accent. Artur has Jenny, the girl Nate likes. Artur charms adults and kids alike, and Nate can’t stand it. What makes it double awful is that Artur is such a nice guy. Infuriating. But Artur IS to blame for Nate’s losing his skateboard…indirectly. Artur dripped paint in Nate’s eye, causing Nate to knock over the ladder Artur was on. Nate got detention (Artur didn’t), and Nate had to hurry on his skateboard to get to Timber Scouts. In the hurry, Nate was clothes-lined by a lady and her poodle, and his board sailed into the river. There is a chance he can win a new board by selling (dorky) wall hangings door to door for Scouts. He just has to beat the new kid in the troop…Artur! Peirce’s third Big Nate chapter book, starring Big Nate (from the comic strip of the same name), is the slickest of this series of hybrid comics-and-text chapter books. Nate’s an artistic, realistic, funny narrator.

On a roll indeed!

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-194438-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
NEXT STOP, SUPERSTARDOM!
by Lincoln Peirce

- BOOK REVIEW
DESTINED FOR AWESOMENESS
by Lincoln Peirce ; illustrated by Lincoln Peirce

- BOOK REVIEW
BATTLE OF THE BODKINS
by Lincoln Peirce ; illustrated by Lincoln Peirce

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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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.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)