Geeder does make the association and learns to truly appreciate Zeely in an interlude of growing up successfully captured...
By the time you find out that Geeder (Elizabeth) and her younger brother Toeboy (John) are Negro it doesn't really matter anyway, although that fact is a part of their composite personalities and it does help to stress the extraordinary fascination Geeder felt for Zeely Taber.
For the duration of this short book Geeder is a fully realized young girl with the imagination and intuition consistent with her age and bounciness. Her surroundings can always be shared with her—the old farm with its antique-furnished house lovingly cared for by her Uncle Ross, the special aura of a summer vacation away from home, the complexities of travelling alone by train, her sibling superiority/tenderness toward Toeboy. A summer holiday is a time for revelations and Geeder's is Zeely Tabor, the six and one-half foot tall young woman who helps tend pigs on Uncle Ross' farm. From a pictorial magazine article Geeder jumps to the conclusion that Zeely is really a Watutsi queen, and in a rare moment of self-revelation Zeely indicates how non-royal she is. Zeely's time of day is the night, and at one point Uncle Ross reflects that "a night traveller must be somebody who wants to walk tall. And to walk tall, you most certainly must have to run free...it is the free spirit in any of us breaking loose."
Geeder does make the association and learns to truly appreciate Zeely in an interlude of growing up successfully captured here. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1966
ISBN: 1416914137
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1966
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 warm bundle of holiday cheer.
In a funny, feel-good tale, 12-year-old twins separated at birth meet by chance and try to pull off a family switch during the December holidays.
The girls, who are cued white, agree that it would be a delicious prank, but each has a personal motive, too: Aviva Davis, who was adopted by a culturally Jewish mom and a Black dad who was raised Christian, wonders what it’s like to celebrate Christmas. Budding author Holly Martin, who was adopted by a white-presenting single mom, sees a golden opportunity to gather experiences for a school writing assignment about facing her fears. In a plot as sweet as a Hanukkah jelly doughnut and twisty as a Christmas cinnamon roll, the pair just manages to bail one another out of a string of sticky situations—both hilarious and otherwise. They both learn something of the customs and meaning of the two holidays while working through tears and laughter—not to mention conflicts sparked by their very different personalities. Everything culminates in a holiday performance at a local senior center that will have readers rising up to cheer them on. Though their history remains tantalizingly mysterious, for the protagonists, who narrate alternating chapters, it’s mission accomplished and more: Aviva emerges feeling more secure in her Jewish identity, while anxious Holly discovers unexpected depths of courage.
A warm bundle of holiday cheer. (song lyrics) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250360670
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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