Sleator (The Night the Heads Came, 1996, etc.) stretches plenty of catgut in this latest shocker about physical dismemberment. When 15-year-old Doug learns that his botanist father plans to relocate the family to the local forest, he isn't pleased about leaving school or having only his ten-year-old sister, Colette, for a buddy. His unease blossoms into full-blown anxiety when the family reaches their isolated home, a postcard from Twin Peaks, including the housekeeper, Mrs. Slosh, who sports a Halloween mask to cover the nose she can't afford to fix. Colette is unfazed, however, and when the pair discover a trapdoor in their backyard, she jumps down and makes friends with the beasties—or "the family," as they call themselves—subterranean sub-human life forms forced to borrow body parts from humans in order to survive. Fingers, the blind second-in-command, explains that the family's health is linked to the woodlands, which are being deforested by a logging company (Sleator is vague on the details). The plot moves quickly, and soon a war between the beasties and the loggers erupts: All too soon, the remaining beastie tribes are licking their wounds and Doug donates one of his eyes to make Fingers the new queen. The only authentically bizarre moment comes when the children must explain to their parents what happened to Doug's eye. Lots of cheap tricks add up to a rushed and silly sideshow. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-45598-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this abridged and illustrated version of his Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), Bryson invites a younger crowd of seekers on a tour of time, space and science—from the Big Bang and the birth of the solar system to the growth and study of life on Earth. The single-topic spreads are adorned with cartoon portraits of scientists, explorers and (frequently) the author himself, which go with small nature photos and the occasional chart or cutaway view. Though occasionally subject to sweeping and dubious statements—“There’s no chance we could ever make a journey through the solar system”—Bryson makes a genial guide (“for you to be here now, trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to come together in a complicated and obliging manner to create you”), and readers with even a flicker of curiosity in their souls about Big Ideas will come away sharing his wonder at living in such a “fickle and eventful universe.” (index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73810-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
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