Alice is back again, but this time she’s younger. In the first of three planned prequels to the extensive series about Alice McKinley, eight-year-old Alice moves to Tacoma Park, Maryland, from Chicago. Although written for a younger audience, this first-person narrative offers the same elements as those for older readers, dealing with friendship, family, and the embarrassments of childhood, all with good humor. Also as usual, Naylor (Simply Alice, p. 496, etc.) adds a tragedy—in this case, a relative’s death—but deals with its emotional impact only superficially, striking a false note in her otherwise perceptive portrayal of well-loved child. While this is an enjoyable story, and Alice and her family are as likable as ever, readers who love the series will miss the presence of Alice’s friends, Elizabeth, Pamela, and Patrick, who figure heavily in the other plots. Similarly, those who start with this prequel will encounter a major change in the cast of characters when Alice moves again in The Agony of Alice, originally the first book. Starting with Alice doesn’t fill in any important gaps in the backstory and, in fact, creates a few discrepancies—Alice has a good time with her cousin Carol in this prequel, but in The Agony of Alice, she doesn’t remember who Carol is. Nevertheless, this cheerful addition will find a ready audience among the younger siblings of Alice fans as well as the devoted older fans themselves, to whom Alice feels like a friend. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84395-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
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.
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
