The lovable characters, the mystery of the ghost, and the deep friendship between the two children will lead middle graders...
This middle-grade fantasy thriller stars two orphans, Marybeth and Lionel, and depicts their trouble with a powerful and determined ghost.
“Lionel was a wild boy. Sometimes he forgot he was a boy at all.” On the other hand, “Marybeth was a very normal girl, with dark hair that she wore braided into pigtails, and round spectacles with red metal rims.” Despite their differences, the two white 9-year-olds are firm friends. They escape from the six older, mean orphans in the little red house presided over by the stuffy Mrs. Mannerd by going into the woods nearby, where Lionel sees a blue something that he thinks is a fox. Later, Marybeth sees the mysterious blue light—and is possessed by it. Increasingly frightening events ensue, as they try to discover what the ghost (for that’s what it is) wants Marybeth to do. Precise details and humor at the outset will engage readers’ attention, while tension and suspense will keep those pages turning once they are hooked. The depictions of the children and their guardian as well as of the house and landscape bind the realistic elements of the story together while providing an anchor for the fantasy.
The lovable characters, the mystery of the ghost, and the deep friendship between the two children will lead middle graders back to the author’s A Curious Tale of the In-between (2015) and have them counting the days until her next book. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61963-643-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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