The time is 1951, the place is small-town Tennessee, and the country is at war with Korea. But seven-year-old Leandra and her friends have a war of their own: a dog is terrorizing them. Tippy Lemmey, the dog with a first and last name, barks and chases and generally makes Leandra, Paul, and Jeannie’s lives very difficult. In this new addition to the Ready-for-Chapters series, McKissack tells the fast-paced story of friendship and acceptance. Leandra’s father loves her “as much as heaven will allow” and both parents are solid and caring. Her father straddles that fine line between listening to his frightened daughter and allowing her to solve her own problems. Turns out the Lemmeys are raising Tippy Lemmey because the real owner, their son, is serving in the army in Korea. When Tippy Lemmey is stolen by dognappers intent on selling stolen dogs, the children are faced with a dilemma. On one hand, Tippy has made their lives difficult. On the other, their new friends, the Lemmeys, love their beloved son’s dog. The children come to the dog’s rescue and the dog comes to their rescue as well. The familiar situations and exciting plot will keep the pages turning, but the characters will stay with the new reader long after the story is put away. Short chapters, frequent pencil illustrations, generous font and white space are all hallmarks of a book for new chapter book readers, and this one is perfect on all counts. Best of breed. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85019-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fact and fiction dovetail neatly in this tale of a wonderfully resolute child who finds a memorable way to convince her father that the newly-finished Brooklyn Bridge is safe to cross. Having watched the great bridge going up for most of her young life, Hannah is eager to walk it, but despite repeated, fact-laced appeals to reason (and Hannah is a positive fount of information about its materials and design), her father won’t be moved: “No little girl of mine will cross that metal monster!” Hannah finally hatches a far-fetched plan to convince him once and for all; can she persuade the renowned P.T. Barnum to march his corps of elephants across? She can, and does (actually, he was already planning to do it). Pham places Hannah, radiating sturdy confidence, within sepia-toned, exactly rendered period scenes that capture both the grandeur of the bridge in its various stages of construction, and the range of expressions on the faces of onlookers during its opening ceremonies and after. Readers will applaud Hannah’s polite persistence. (afterword, resources) (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-87011-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers.
Elliot’s first day of school turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Elliot Eisner—skinny and pale with curly brown hair—is a bit nervous about being the new kid. Thankfully, he hits it off with fellow new student, “punk rock”–looking Uchenna Devereaux, a black girl with twists (though they actually look like dreads in Aly’s illustrations). On a first-day field trip to New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the pair investigates a noise in the trees. The cause? A Jersey Devil: a blue-furred, red-bellied and -winged mythical creature that looks like “a tiny dragon” with cloven hooves, like a deer’s, on its hind feet. Unwittingly, the duo bonds with the creature by feeding it, and it later follows them back to the bus. Unsurprisingly, they lose the creature (which they alternately nickname Jersey and Bonechewer), which forces them to go to their intimidating, decidedly odd teacher, Peruvian Professor Fauna, for help in recovering it. The book closes with Professor Fauna revealing the truth—he heads a secret organization committed to protecting mythical creatures—and inviting the children to join, a neat setup for what is obviously intended to be a series. The predictable plot is geared to newly independent readers who are not yet ready for the usual heft of contemporary fantasies. A brief history lesson given by a mixed-race associate of Fauna’s in which she compares herself to the American “melting pot” manages to come across as simultaneously corrective and appropriative.
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3170-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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