Book Two of The Cousins Quartet focuses on Lolly Bancroft, whose parents are having a heated quarrel that Lolly imagines will end in divorce—not a pleasing prospect, though she'd like being a full-fledged Fortune like her cousins if Mum reverts to her maiden name. It's true, as Mum says, that Dad is overly critical; still, Lolly loves him dearly. The only person who's pleased is Dad's snooty mother, who never approved of the Fortunes and is eager to have Dad back. Meanwhile, Lolly decides to live up to her full name, Lorelei, by becoming more assertive, and she and her feisty cousins, each with a personal agenda (Tracey wants Dad's Jaguar to stay in the family; Tessa needs his financial advice), contrive some mild pranks that have delightfully comic results—and achieve their aim of getting the parents back together. Lolly decides that "Lorelei Bancroft" suits her best, and wins a spot in her cousins' treehouse despite her different surname. Like The Good Fortunes Gang (p. 788), a lively, accessible story told with unusual wit and sagacity. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-31135-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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