Liz was hardly more than a child herself when her daughter Tallahassee was born; 12 years later she still thinks like a teen-ager, a bitter fact that her daughter finally accepts after her first winter away from her. After Liz's parents' death in a plane crash, she lived with her older brother, Dan, till she quarreled with his wife, Thelma, and ran away to Florida to bear an out-of-wedlock child. Tallahassee has known a series of Liz's waitressing jobs and boyfriends; now Liz abandons her, as she has them, as she did the inconvenient cat. She sends Tallahassee to Dan in conventional suburban Maryland and goes off to Hollywood with a new boyfriend who promises film contacts. Sure she'll be sent for any day, Tallahassee skimps on school assignments and gets into outright war with Aunt Thelma. But she does learn to love Uncle Dan, make friends with the girl next door, and find an unexpected paternal grandmother. Hahn tells her story with enough skill to rivet attention; Tallahassee is a complex, spunky, likable character. Others are less completely drawn, insufficiently believable to support the plot. Thelma's unmitigated rancor toward Liz's daughter is (unfortunately) plausible, but her sudden turnaround after Tallahassee's abortive attempt to run away is not. And if Dan is as nice as his remarks to Tallahassee imply, why is he so long oblivious to his wife's persecution of her? When Liz turns up briefly with still another boyfriend, we know Tallahassee already has more maturity than Liz and will make a place for herself in her new home. Despite its flaws, a page-turner with a well-drawn protagonist.
Pub Date: March 23, 1987
ISBN: 0618752463
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators.
Existing artwork from an artistic giant inspires a fairy-tale reimagination by a master of the horror genre.
In King’s interpretation of a classic Brothers Grimm story, which accompanies set and costume designs that the late Sendak created for a 1997 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, siblings Hansel and Gretel survive abandonment in the woods and an evil witch’s plot to gobble them up before finding their “happily ever after” alongside their father. Prose with the reassuring cadence of an old-timey tale, paired with Sendak’s instantly recognizable artwork, will lull readers before capitalizing on these creators’ knack for injecting darkness into seemingly safe spaces. Gaping faces loom in crevices of rocks and trees, and a gloomy palette of muted greens and ocher amplify the story’s foreboding tone, while King never sugarcoats the peach-skinned children’s peril. Branches with “clutching fingers” hide “the awful enchanted house” of a “child-stealing witch,” all portrayed in an eclectic mix of spot and full-bleed images. Featuring insults that might strike some as harsh (“idiot,” “fool”), the lengthy, dense text may try young readers’ patience, and the often overwhelmingly ominous mood feels more pitched to adults—particularly those familiar with King and Sendak—but an introduction acknowledges grandparents as a likely audience, and nostalgia may prompt leniency over an occasional disconnect between words and art.
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780062644695
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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