Remy’s quiet tale of change and growth marks a promising start to a new series.
A characteristically sensitive exploration of the emotional life of preteens from Greenwald.
Eleven-year-old Remy relishes her summers on Seagate Island with her best friends, Micayla and Bennett, and begins her first-person, present-tense story emphasizing her resistance to change. By summer’s end, she has moved to an acknowledgment that change can be positive, even becoming an agent for change on her beloved island. Remy’s grandmother, a year-round Seagate resident, died three years ago, but the death of Grandma’s dog, Danish, occurred more recently. Remy discovers a way to grieve for Danish with her first real summer job, as residents happily use her dogsitting expertise. Meanwhile, Remy slowly adjusts to the warm welcome Bennett gives to new kids on the island, eventually relinquishing her label of “the downers” for twins Calvin and Claire and even figuring out a way to honor the twins’ grandfather at an annual Seagate celebration. The book starts out slowly, but readers who continue with the story will find reward as they become familiar with an endearing protagonist, her human and canine friends, and the other residents of Seagate Island. The gentle humor and acceptance of the strong emotions that can arise from fairly benign situations—particularly in the world of preteens—are evocative of Beverly Cleary’s novels, with a comfortable injection of 21st-century technology.
Remy’s quiet tale of change and growth marks a promising start to a new series. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: April 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1018-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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