Equally sound as inspiration and writing advice, this tale fits neatly in Polacco’s oeuvre.
There are now a half-dozen stories by Polacco about teachers who made a difference for her as she grew up. This one is about “Killer Keller,” who never gave an A to anyone and whose students did not always last out the semester.
Young Patricia is honored to be chosen for Miss Keller’s writing class, but she is also intimidated by the teacher’s booming, Southern-accented voice and imperious manner. Young would-be writers will be awed, as Patricia was, by Miss Keller’s regal bearing, red lipstick, long red fingernails, and by her uncompromising approach. For her first homework assignment for Miss Keller, Patricia writes an essay, pouring out three pages of affectionate details about her family and home. She is stung to have her “masterpiece” dismissed due to a surfeit of “love”s. Patricia’s next-door neighbor, Pop, a retired baker, comforts her at the end of the day and tells her a story of Killer Keller, Pop’s thesaurus, and one of Pop’s own sons. How Patricia eventually earns that A is as heart-tugging as all of Polacco’s family-based tales; it is sentimental to be sure, but it is brought to life by the author’s pencil-and-marker illustrations, featuring her characteristically exaggerated and expressive line and color. Patricia’s dejection and subsequent triumph come through loud and clear.
Equally sound as inspiration and writing advice, this tale fits neatly in Polacco’s oeuvre. (Picture book. 6-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16691-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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