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WONDER

Name: WONDER
Author: Rachel Vail
ISBN: 0-531-05964-2

by Rachel Vail ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1991

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Seventh grade begins as a disaster: not only has Jessica's best friend Sheila made an alliance with five other girls who arrive dressed alike, but the new group dubs Jessica ``Wonder'' (as in Wonder Bread) in honor of the bold polka dots she's wearing. Thrown by suddenly becoming unpopular, Jessica stumbles through one awkward response after another, snubbing the hesitant overtures of Conor, a boy she really likes, and slow to realize that the best way to counter jibes is to join in the laughter. Fortunately, Conor persists, becoming a confidant as well as a first boyfriend—loyal even when Jessica assummes, wrongly, that he's been kissing Sheila during a party game. At first glance, this is just another story about friendships; but Vail has the measure of this vulnerable age and its painful concern about identity within the group. Gauche, likable Jess—seeing herself in an unlucky bird caught on a kite string, reverting to childhood in a romp with the boys in the creek, quietly saving money for Dad's troubled business, getting the crowd on her side at last by dressing as Wonder Bread for Halloween, or revealing her continuing affection for Sheila by defending her, to her own surprise—is a character to remember. A skillfully fashioned, accessible first novel, with no pat answers but a satisfying conclusion. (Fiction. 10-14)*justify no*

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-531-05964-2

Page Count: 122

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMETIMES I KAPLOOM
by Rachel Vail ; illustrated by Hyewon Yum

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMETIMES I GRUMBLESQUINCH
by Rachel Vail ; illustrated by Hyewon Yum

- BOOK REVIEW
BAD BEST FRIEND
by Rachel Vail

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A YEAR DOWN YONDER

From the Grandma Dowdel series , Vol. 2

by Richard Peck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2000

Year-round fun.

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Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”

This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”

Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000

ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST MAN
by Richard Peck

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOUSE WITH THE QUESTION MARK TAIL
by Richard Peck ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRETS AT SEA
by Richard Peck illustrated by Kelly Murphy

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A WEEK IN THE WOODS

by Andrew Clements ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2002

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Playing on his customary theme that children have more on the ball than adults give them credit for, Clements (Big Al and Shrimpy, p. 951, etc.) pairs a smart, unhappy, rich kid and a small-town teacher too quick to judge on appearances. Knowing that he’ll only be finishing up the term at the local public school near his new country home before hieing off to an exclusive academy, Mark makes no special effort to fit in, just sitting in class and staring moodily out the window. This rubs veteran science teacher Bill Maxwell the wrong way, big time, so that even after Mark realizes that he’s being a snot and tries to make amends, all he gets from Mr. Maxwell is the cold shoulder. Matters come to a head during a long-anticipated class camping trip; after Maxwell catches Mark with a forbidden knife (a camp mate’s, as it turns out) and lowers the boom, Mark storms off into the woods. Unaware that Mark is a well-prepared, enthusiastic (if inexperienced) hiker, Maxwell follows carelessly, sure that the “slacker” will be waiting for rescue around the next bend—and breaks his ankle running down a slope. Reconciliation ensues once he hobbles painfully into Mark’s neatly organized camp, and the two make their way back together. This might have some appeal to fans of Gary Paulsen’s or Will Hobbs’s more catastrophic survival tales, but because Clements pauses to explain—at length—everyone’s history, motives, feelings, and mindset, it reads more like a scenario (albeit an empowering one, at least for children) than a story. Worthy—but just as Maxwell underestimates his new student, so too does Clement underestimate his readers’ ability to figure out for themselves what’s going on in each character’s life and head. (Fiction. 10-12)