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EVIE AND RHINO

Name: EVIE AND RHINO
Author: Neridah McMullin
ISBN: 9781761600302

by Neridah McMullin ; illustrated by Astred Hicks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2025

A nostalgic story that will appeal to lovers of old-fashioned tales.

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In 1891 Australia, a girl grieving the loss of her parents bonds with a shipwrecked rhinoceros.

Evie, 10, hasn’t spoken since her parents died at sea two years ago. She lives with her ornithologist grandfather in “crumbling” Lunar House in a remote corner of the state of Victoria, where they are tended by Cook (their housekeeper) and Mr. Duffer (their farmhand). Evie has a preternatural affinity for animals, so when she comes across Rhino stranded on the beach, she’s unafraid and leads him home to the stables. Rhino’s an astonishingly agreeable fellow and quickly endears himself to the household, even going so far as to help Cook with the laundry. Nevertheless, Grandpa telegraphs the authorities and learns Rhino had been bound for the Royal Melbourne Zoo, which dispatches a representative to retrieve him. Evie frets over the prospect of losing Rhino, and Grandpa frets over the effect his loss will have on Evie. Basing her tale on a real incident, the shipwreck of the SS Bancoora, McMullin’s cozy adventure of interspecies love and healing has the sentimental feel of children’s literature of yore. Rhino’s cloying adoration of “the golden-haired human child” is only slightly tempered by his appealing earthiness. The human characters read white, and, underscoring the social class differences, the servants’ speech is rendered phonetically (“Yer drenched. Come on, let’s git yer changed”). Hicks’ grayscale drawings punctuate the text.

A nostalgic story that will appeal to lovers of old-fashioned tales. (author's note, recipe) (Historical fiction. 8-11)

Pub Date: June 3, 2025

ISBN: 9781761600302

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Walker Books Australia

Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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THE MOON OVER HIGH STREET
by Natalie Babbitt

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JACK PLANK TELLS TALES
by Natalie Babbitt

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PEACOCK
by Valerie Worth & illustrated by Natalie Babbitt

- SEEN & HEARD
Alexis Bledel To Read ‘Tuck Everlasting’ Audiobook

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DIARY OF A WIMPY KID

A NOVEL IN CARTOONS

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 1

by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2007

Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.

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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)