In this third installment of the adventures of boisterous, soccer-playing Emma, the entire O’Fallon household feels the effects of her scheming. Annie, their fabulously obliging nanny, has returned from her Ireland vacation and is secretly keeping a new kitten and ferret in her apartment. How is Emma going to introduce additional pets to her already stressed-out parents? More importantly, how will she convince Mom that Annie, not Mom, should be the traveling soccer team’s chaperone, on their first away game, in which she needs to prove her skills against ball-hogging rival Katie? When her parents are surprised by the new pets’ escape-chase around the dinner table, Emma’s dilemmas increase. Taking a cue from her father’s impending airline strike, Emma organizes her siblings into a picket line, complete with demands and offers of negotiations. Hermes craftily combines suspense and mild amusement with themes of self-esteem and problem-solving. Emma’s bold planning allows for positive outcomes as she learns about her own strengths while recognizing the differing individual support her mother and nanny provide. Another winner. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5301-7
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
There is something profoundly elemental going on in Smalls’s book: the capturing of a moment of unmediated joy. It’s not melodramatic, but just a Saturday in which an African-American father and son immerse themselves in each other’s company when the woman of the house is away. Putting first things first, they tidy up the house, with an unheralded sense of purpose motivating their actions: “Then we clean, clean, clean the windows,/wipe, wipe, wash them right./My dad shines in the windows’ light.” When their work is done, they head for the park for some batting practice, then to the movies where the boy gets to choose between films. After a snack, they work their way homeward, racing each other, doing a dance step or two, then “Dad takes my hand and slows down./I understand, and we slow down./It’s a long, long walk./We have a quiet talk and smile.” Smalls treats the material without pretense, leaving it guileless and thus accessible to readers. Hays’s artwork is wistful and idyllic, just as this day is for one small boy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-316-79899-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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