Synopses & Reviews
Here's the first book in the hilarious Moxy Maxwell series, which includes
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes and
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano. It wasn't as if Moxy hadn't
tried to do her summer reading. She and
Stuart Little had been inseparable all summer, like best friends. If
Stuart Little wasn't in her backpack, it was in her lap . . . or holding up the coffee table . . . or getting splashed when Moxy went swimming. But now it's the end of August—the day before fourth grade. And if Moxy doesn't read
all of
Stuart Little immediately, there are going to be "consequences."
It may look like Moxy is doing nothing, but actually she is very busy with a zillion highly crucial things—like cleaning up her room (sort of) and training her dog and taking a much-needed rest in the hammock. Just look at the pictures her twin brother Mark takes to document it all—they're scattered throughout—and you'll see why it's so difficult to make time for a book about a mouse.
Of course our heroine does manage to finish her book, falling so in love with it that she finds herself reading under the covers with a flashlight, late into the night.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Set in New Mexico in the early 1980s, Hawkins's children's book debut is rich with details that feel drawn from memory (an engineering professor who worked on his family's orchard as a child, Hawkins also contributes schematic line drawings), and Jackson's narration sparkles. His hard work, setbacks, and motivations make this a highly relatable adventure in entrepreneurship."--Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
With frostbitten fingers, sleepless nights and sore muscles, 14-year-old Jackson Jones and his posse of cousins discover the lost art of winging it when they take over an orchard of 300 wild apple trees. After Jackson makes an unfair contract with his neighbor, Mrs. Nelson, the kids must learn about pruning, irrigation and pest control if they are to avoid losing $8,000.
With spot illustrations for mechanical-loving readersthe gears of a tractor, a plow with disksand with mathematical calculations of the great amount of money to be earned, this novel has the sort of can-do spirt and sense of earned independence not often found in today's fiction.
Synopsis
An unusual and captivating novel brimming with a sense of can-do and earned independence. With frostbitten fingers, sleepless nights, and sore muscles, fourteen-year-old Jackson Jones and his posse of cousins discover the lost art of winging it when they take over an orchard of three hundred wild apple trees. They know nothing about pruning or irrigation or pest control, but if they are to avoid losing the $8,000 they owe on an unfair contract with their neighbor, Mrs. Nelson, they just have to figure it out.
About the Author
Peggy Gifford's original plan was to become a famous (but really nice) actress. But after touring Ohio as Winnie-the-Pooh, she decided to become a writer instead. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and her work has appeared in the
Iowa Review, the
Antioch Review, and women's magazines like
Redbook. This is her first novel for children. She lives in New York, New York and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Valorie Fisher is the author-illustrator of How High Can a Dinosaur Count?, which recevied two starred reviews, among other titles. Her first two picture books, My Big Brother and My Big Sister—both Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winners—were, like Moxy Maxwell, illustrated with photographs. She lives in Cornwall, Connecticut.
From the Hardcover edition.