Seidler takes on an age-old story line—jealousy and competition between two dissimilar brothers—and spins it into a survival story with a soft mystical edge. Tim Tuttle, the gentle hero of the novel, is constantly outshone by his younger brother John Henry. In fact, Tim confesses to his Great-aunt Winifred, an eccentric but wise oldster who speaks almost entirely in folksy sayings, John Henry is just naturally “better at everything.” The situation reverses when Tim takes up painting and turns out to have a genuine gift. John Henry is consumed with resentment, so much so that he plays a mean trick on his brother, defacing a portrait Tim painted and then blaming him. Upset because his parents don’t believe his denials and furious that his multitalented brother would “ruin the one thing Tim was good at,” the young artist jumps out his window and into the icy snow below, sustaining a concussion in the process. Here, the story changes gears, going from a low-key family drama to a middling children-in-jeopardy story, as first a dazed Tim, then Tim and John Henry, struggle to stay alive in the freezing cold. The slender novel can’t sustain all the ideas it takes on, and the focus on the parents detracts from the main plot at the end. Still, every child with a brother or sister will be able to relate to the core situation, perhaps learning that comparing oneself to others is as “useless as two tails on a dog” in the process. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029179-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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