I hate this goddamned star system, I really do. If I give four, does that mean it is eternally almost as good as The Golden Notebook, and just that much better than The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas? I suppose "eternally" is a trick wording, because come Ragnarök, Crispin Glover and I will be ...
“The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel)” is where Raskin first comes into her own as a writer. I would describe it as Daniel Pinkwater-esque, but since Pinkwater didn't really break through until "Lizard Music", published five years after this book, perhaps it would be more accurate ...
“The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues” is, I think, just as good as “The Westing Game” in its own way, a Pinkwateresque mystery story with a dash of Gordon Korman. The central mystery here is just as clever and complex as that in “The Westing Game”, only Raskin is mostly far less serious about it...
This book was originally reviewed on my blog, Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing.Figgs and Phantoms by Ellen Raskin won the Nebery Honor in 1975. Four years later, she won the Newbery Award for The Westing Game. I read The Westing Game several years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It was wonderfu...
The twins decided they had to see Mr. Kunkel early the next morning (or, as Tina put it, they would die of hypertension). That meant skipping school, but Tina thought of a good excuse. It was Rosh Hashanah. “After all, we are orphans,” she said, “so we could be Jewish as far as anyone knows.”Alth...