A good book on empathy and friendship, with some Hawaiian culture mixed in.
Five kids go on a scavenger hunt to make a sleepover soup that will grant their wishes.
Seattleite Leilani is hapa haole, part white and part Hawaiian. Her goal for the sixth grade is to become one of the Haileys, the popular group in school. To show the Haileys she is fun, Leilani throws a Hawaiian luau sleepover. Unfortunately, the invitations actually go to the “DO NOT invite” list: her cousin who farts, Manga Girl (aka Tanisha), and the new boy who has selective mutism. At least her best friend, Autumn, comes too. Bored and hungry, the group decides to make great-grandmother Tutu’s recipe for sleepover soup, a magic soup that requires each of them to add a special ingredient. The scavenger hunt unveils unexpected truths about each of them. Selfors’ novel springs from the classic folktale “Stone Soup” and incorporates tidbits of Hawaiian culture and cosmology, often introduced in Tutu’s sometimes clunkily expository dialogue. Since mainlander Leilani is largely ignorant of her own culture, this didacticism works within the plot, though coverage of cosmology is relatively slight. Overall, the story models not judging others, showing empathy, and friendship. The characters are all very different—an athlete, an artist, a book lover, a child with anxiety, and a girl desperate to be included—appealing to a broad audience. Tanisha is depicted as black on the cover; the other sleepover guests seem to be white.
A good book on empathy and friendship, with some Hawaiian culture mixed in. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-10974-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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 real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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