by E.L. Konigsburg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
The large cast, looping plot line, and embedded stories with different narrators require careful sorting, but the effort is...
Admirable acts, challenging ideas, and grace notes positively festoon this superb tale of four sixth graders and a paraplegic teacher forming a junior high Academic Bowl team that sweeps away the competition.
The plot is composed of interwoven puzzles. What prompts Mrs. Olinski to choose Noah, Nadia, Ethan, and Julian for the team over the usual overachievers and honor students in her class? What do they know about her, themselves, and each other that puts them so precisely on the same wavelength and gives them such complementary knowledge and experience? Each has a tale to tell, in the course of which all four witness acts of kindness and respect that teach them to find those feelings in themselves and others. In wry prose filled with vivid imagery, information, and often oblique clues, Konigsburg takes her team through bonding, drills, and a series of contests as suspenseful as any in sports fiction; the children and Mrs. Olinski's public triumph mirror inner epiphanies of rare depth and richness.
The large cast, looping plot line, and embedded stories with different narrators require careful sorting, but the effort is eminently worthwhile, and Konigsburg kindly provides answers at the end. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 978-0-689-80993-4
Page Count: 163
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Julia Iredale
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by David Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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by David Shannon ; illustrated by David Shannon
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by David Shannon ; illustrated by David Shannon
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by David Shannon ; illustrated by David Shannon
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