Skip to main content

Leroy Ninker Saddles Up


Leroy Ninker Saddles Up


Leroy Ninker Saddles Up
by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
Candlewick Press, 2014.  90 pages.  Intermediate

     Leroy Ninker sells popcorn at the movies, but what he really wants to be is a cowboy. All this remains a dream until Beatrice Leapaleoni, ticket-taker at the Bijou, tells him to take his fate in his hands and wrestle it to the ground. She shows him an ad for an exceptionally cheap horse for sale. He is hoping for a fast, strong horse he will name Tornado, but the horse he gets is a bag of bones named Maybelline. Maybelline responds not to reins and spurs, but to loving, flattering speech. Maybelline won't fit through the door of Leroy's apartment, but other than that, they get on swimmingly until Maybelline runs away on a stormy night and Leroy can't find her.  But no worries!  Maybelline is found on Deckawoo drive and Mrs. Watson and Mercy invite all in for a buttery toast breakfast.  Kate DiCamillo has done it again and devotees of the Mercy Watson series should be pleased as punch to meet this dynamic new duo - Leroy Ninker, cowboy, and his horse Maybelline.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Painting for Peace in Ferguson

Painting for Peace in Ferguson By Carol Swartout Klein Treehouse Publishing Group, 2015. Nonfiction. When the city of Ferguson was overrun with so much hate and despair that homes and businesses had to be boarded up to protect property, citizens of the community decided to bring a message of hope by painting the boarded windows. Klein’s rhyming text supports the photographs of the hundreds of artists and volunteers and their artwork as they bring the messages of peace, hope, love, and that by being united they can make a difference. A great book to show children how a community rallied to make a positive change and that even a small gesture can make a huge difference. A great discussion opener on how we should treat each other.

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

  The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...

Dragon Run

Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013.  336 pgs.  Fantasy      Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life.  He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines.  Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...