A beautifully written and illustrated feline tale with subtle emotional depths.
A cat hungry for adventure discovers that his destiny lies closer to hearth and home in this chapter book.
Swayed by an aging tomcat’s tales of seafaring derring-do, orange tabby kitten Rufus dreams of a world beyond his tame life with Mama Cat and his siblings. Adopted by gentle Mrs. Lin, Rufus is happy to be her affectionate companion until his first birthday brings an acute itch to roam and uncover his destiny. But after a near-fatal forest encounter with maddened nesting geese, the wandering feline is content to settle in with his rescuer, Mr. Peabody. A lonely poet with writer’s block, Mr. Peabody finds peace and the renewal of his creative drive in Rufus’ comfortable presence until he learns that his furry friend, “Mr. Cat,” is the subject of Mrs. Lin’s desperate “missing cat” notice in the newspaper. This feline-centric yet deeply human and adult-friendly novel for children is the first work of fiction by Spandel, a prolific author best known for instructional books on writing for classrooms and workshops. May it not be her last. The author’s well-drawn characters are shaped by empathy, not sentiment, and by her near-poetic observations of the minutiae in their lives (Mrs. Lin’s garden and kitchen; Mr. Peabody’s books and herbal teas) and of the natural world around them. Rufus, beginning his journey with an explorer’s bravado, sees a “familiar wooded landscape transformed into a patchwork of meadows and wetlands. Carpets of purple asters and yellow marsh marigolds rolled out in all directions as the sun spilled the last of its light across the water and littoral mud flats….The world was reaching out its arms, enveloping the young swashbuckler in its embrace.” How Rufus stays in the lives of both his loving caretakers and discovers his true purpose are movingly answered through the wisdom of an unexpected and memorable source: Asha, a battered rescue cat, scarred but not broken by rough living. The text is richly complemented by Kelleher’s pastel paintings of animals and ambient settings. Among the book’s endmatter: Mr. Peabody’s recipe for crab cakes and his poem dedicated to the absent Asha, promising to “keep an extra blue plate at the table always…for when you bring your wild heart home.”
A beautifully written and illustrated feline tale with subtle emotional depths.Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9972831-3-6
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Teaching That Makes Sense
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading.
When Franklin School principal Mr. Boone announces a pet-show fundraiser, white third-grader Cody—whose lack of skill and interest in academics is matched by keen enthusiasm for and knowledge of animals—discovers his time to shine.
As with other books in this series, the children and adults are believable and well-rounded. Even the dialogue is natural—no small feat for a text easily accessible to intermediate readers. Character growth occurs, organically and believably. Students occasionally, humorously, show annoyance with teachers: “He made mad squinty eyes at Mrs. Molina, which fortunately she didn’t see.” Readers will be kept entertained by Cody’s various problems and the eventual solutions. His problems include needing to raise $10 to enter one of his nine pets in the show (he really wants to enter all of them), his troublesome dog Angus—“a dog who ate homework—actually, who ate everything and then threw up afterward”—struggles with homework, and grappling with his best friend’s apparently uncaring behavior toward a squirrel. Serious values and issues are explored with a light touch. The cheery pencil illustrations show the school’s racially diverse population as well as the memorable image of Mr. Boone wearing an elephant costume. A minor oddity: why does a child so immersed in animal facts call his male chicken a rooster but his female chickens chickens?
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-30223-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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