It's not the Hatfields vs. the McCoys, but a feud nonetheless when the four Harfield brothers square off against their new neighbors, the Malloy sisters. It begins when Caroline, Edith Ann (Eddie), and Beth Malloy catch the Harfields dumping dead animals into the stream separating their properties; in response, Caroline—a consummate actress—plays dead, and as the horrified brothers watch, her sisters sadly throw her in. Once school starts, it's open war. With quick wits and inventiveness on both sides, the antagonists are evenly matched; and even when their pranks go awry, they suffer more fury (or embarrassment) than harm. Naylor has to labor hard to keep the rivalry going- -whenever it's about to die away naturally, someone decides it's too much fun to stop—so that the plot seems a little forced, even though the characters are lively and well-developed. Where will it all end? Not here—a sequel is promised. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-30814-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A fifth-grader struggles to fit in after he and his recently widowed mother move to a decidedly oddball new town.
As if the seemingly infinite pier, the lighthouse in the middle of town, and the beach teeming with enigmatic cats aren’t strange enough, Davy Jones discovers that his school locker has been relocated to the deep end of the swimming pool, his lunchtime fries are delivered by a “spudzooka,” and no one seems to be able to get his name right. On the other hand, his classmates welcome him, and in next to no time he’s breaking into an abandoned arcade to play pinball against a ghost, helping track down a pet pig gone missing on Gravity Maintenance Day, and like adventures that, often as not, take sinister swerves before edging back to the merely peculiar. Point-of-view duties pass freely from character to character, and chapters are punctuated with extracts from the Topsea School Gazette (“Today’s Seaweed Level: Medium-high and feisty”), bulletins on such topics as the safe handling of rubber ducks, and background notes on, for instance, the five local seasons, giving the narrative a pleasantly loose-jointed feel. Davy presents as white, but several other central cast members are specifically described as dark- or light-skinned and are so depicted in the frequent line drawings; one has two moms.
A deft mix of chills and chuckles, not quite as sideways as Wayside School but in the same district. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-00005-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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