A school story that’s full of heart.
A challenging fourth grader faces the “meanest and nastiest” teacher in the school.
Readers will recognize Carter Avery when he blurts out a rude question about the port-wine stain on Ms. Krane’s face in their first meeting. He’s the kid with no filters. He struggles with writing. But, like Mr. Terupt in Buyea’s popular series, Ms. Krane knows how to deal with even the most difficult kids. She has challenges besides wiggly Carter and his nemesis, “bossy” Missy Gerber. Some parents don’t approve of Ms. Krane’s choice to have a baby as an unmarried woman. Buyea weaves all these elements into a suspenseful account of Carter’s year, told in the boy’s believable first-person voice. Readers will fill in the blanks in his unreliable narration, because they know kids like him—they may even share many of his difficulties. Carter doesn’t have friends among his classmates, but he does have caring adults in his life: the grandmother who’s raised him since his parents died, bus driver Mr. Wilson, and Farmer Don, whose eggs Carter and Grams buy. They’re patient with his behavior and his questions. They help him (and readers) understand donor insemination and why judgmental gossip is a problem. Carter decides that his secret mission will be sticking up for Ms. Krane as she has stuck up for him: becoming a good student and proving she’s a good teacher. His success is gratifying. Most characters present white.
A school story that’s full of heart. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593376188
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
© 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.
