When his parents sign him up for floor hockey, which he hates, third-grader Morgan hesitatingly agrees to his friend Aldeen's plan to switch roles. She will play hockey and he will take piano lessons. Their masquerade is difficult to sustain. This is the author’s tenth book about chunky Morgan, his athletic friend Charlie and Aldeen, “the Godzilla of Grade Three,” characters who will feel familiar even to those who have not read the other stories. In this first-person, plot-driven narrative, told in mostly believable dialogue, Aldeen and Morgan get into increasingly difficult situations, moving toward the point when their deception is revealed and Morgan's parents capitulate, letting him continue with music. The setting is generic—a house with a driveway and basement, a schoolyard and the community center. This is part of the Canadian publisher’s First Novels nine aimed at early readers ready for something slightly more substantial. The print is good-sized and heavily leaded; vocabulary is breezy and appropriate. “Aldeen’s eyes go all squinchy. ‘Then I’ll smoosh you into a hockey puck.’ ” Each of the ten short chapters includes one full-page black-and-white cartoon illustration. These effectively portray the characters and highlight important moments. These provide accessible, comfortable stories for students who’ve moved beyond early readers but are not ready for much greater length or more complexity. (Fiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-88780-926-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Formac
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.
Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
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