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September 2003 Vol.4 Issue 9
This
month's book reviews
A
fifth grader plays matchmaker
for his divorced mother
Harvey Ryan thinks
his life is being ruined because his mother, a popular children's
author, uses him for book ideas and then comes to his school
and talks about it. If he and his friend, Seal, can come up
with a boyfriend for his mother, who is divorced from his
father, maybe she won't have time anymore to ruin his life.
The plot and subplots are treated lightly with humor. But
themes of divorce, remarriage of one parent, visitation rights,
kid-parent relations, the interrelationship of divorced parents
- all are worked into what on the face of it is a comedy romp.
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An
old-fashioned fairy tale
spun by a modern writer
Every kid at
one time or another thinks about writing his or her own version
of the old fairy tales. Children's author, Patrice Kindl,
lives out the fantasy in her little book, "Goose Chase."
Alexandria, the heroine in Kindl's fairy tale, thinks like
a twentieth century independent woman. She certainly isn't
going to be victimized by events, but is bound to take charge
even in the most unlikely and unexpected happenings in her
life. Evil kings, stupid princes, ugly ogres, whatever, Alexandria
is programmed to try to make the best of the situation and
do it her way. The greatest fun for the author as well as
the reader is in the telling of the tale, not in its ending
or in trying to make sense of it all.
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Outdoor
adventure features a
rich boy and a hardheaded teacher
Take a lonely
but spoiled rich kid, educated in exclusive private schools.
Place him in a regular public school. Mix in a hardheaded
science teacher who runs a wilderness camping experience for
his fifth grade students each year. Have the teacher unjustly
accuse the rich boy of bringing a forbidden knife to the camp.
Have the rich boy run away into the woods. Send the outdoorsman
teacher after him, but without adequate clothing and provisions
to head into the wild. Lose them both. Have the kid turn out
to be a hero by saving the teacher.
The children's
author, Andrew Clements, does a good job of securing the reader's
sympathy for a lonely and over-protected boy from an enormously
wealthy family. Clements uses the device popular in kids'
books of having the child turn out to save the very grown-up
who has misjudged him. It makes for a good adventure story.
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Busy
popularity-seeking middle school
girl sorts out her values
Bess, the heroine
in "Gracie's Girl" by Ellen Wittlinger, is a smart
and independent middle schooler, who is working hard at balancing
what she sees as the expectations of her peers and those of
the adults in her world. She wants to be popular, but she
is too serious-minded to join in the frivolous activity of
many of the girls in her age range. The message of the book
is that, surprisingly, kids can engage in worthwhile pursuits
and still be popular and accepted by the group. Other messages
deal with learning to better understand one's parents, penetrating
the self-absorption of an older teen-age sibling, developing
empathy for those driven to homelessness, and persistence
in the accomplishment of worthwhile goals. With all these
messages, the book still presents true-to-life characters
and tells an engaging story.
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