Lenore Look

Ruby Lu, I'm in love with you!

Ruby is as spirited as her Pacific Northwest predecessor, Ramona, and her east coast counterpart, Clementine. She is confident - sometimes too confident - and cherished by her parents and baby brother, Oscar. The family's Chinese-American customs and food are naturally part of Ruby's life, so they are naturally part of her story. A highlight is the chapter where, after watching her Gung Gung teach her Poh Poh how to drive, Ruby drives herself and Oscar to show more Chinese school (four blocks away) on a Saturday morning - and her takeaway lesson is not to park in the principal's spot!

Ruby also navigates a close but competitive friendship with her neighbor Emma, deals with a new-to-the-neighborhood bully, Christina, and prepares for her cousin, aunt, and uncle to arrive from China. show less

Yeah, yeah, I know I’ve reviewed an Alvin Ho book already. But how could I resist the latest volume, in which Alvin adds dead bodies and funerals to his exceptionally long list of things to be afraid of? The main plot has him spending most of the book trying to work up the courage to go to a funeral (gulp) he has impulsively agreed to attend with GungGung, his grandpa.

Aside from the usual antics and unlikely heroics you’ve come to expect from Alvin and his PDK (Personal Disaster Kit), show more this book includes a particularly laugh-until-milk-comes-out-of-your-nose-hilarious situation in which Alvin’s classmates, believing Alvin’s GungGung to have just died, come to pay their respects to PohPoh (his grandma). Alvin, however, has failed to mention (due to the fact that school renders him physically unable to speak) that his GungGung is not actually dead, but is, in fact, quite healthy (though sleeping like a log). Also, due to a strange turn of events, Alvin’s PohPoh is not home and Alvin is dressed like her. The misunderstanding that ensues is the sort of sheer comic delight that seems to follow Alvin around wherever he goes. show less

Alvin opens his third book with a list of things that could kill him. It includes karate chops, pork chops, chopsticks, and, of course, the kiss of death — which is why he has to carry around a PDK (Personal Disaster Kit) wherever he goes. We soon learn that the timid hero also has “allergies” to shopping, hospitals, and finger sandwiches. But the perpetually afraid and paralyzingly shy Alvin always seems to survive the disasters that are thrown his way, whether it’s a field trip to show more a cemetery or a girl’s birthday party. In the process of surviving, he not only charms the reader with hilariously clever similes ("Pinky's handwriting looks like hair floating in the ocean") and casually wise observations (“If there’s anything I’ve learned from my dad, it’s this: Duck tape is the most useful thing in the house.”); he also learns that he has a lot more courage and know-how than he thought.

Alvin Ho books will appeal to readers who like Greg Heffley but whose parents don't much care for the wimpy kid's attitude. show less

Alvin Ho is afraid of...everything. And I love that there is no one ah-ha moment or panacea, he makes small inroads with therapy etc. which feels honest and natural, all wrapped up in good humor and a moment where he stands up for himself in a relationship. Rather, when he tells Pinky, the boy he tried to impress, that Pinky wasn't a good choice to be Alvin's friend. Deft and humorous.