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bougainvillea's review
5.0
I laughed until I cried and couldn't breathe or talk. Fun way to spend a Friday night! :)
jessalynn_librarian's review against another edition
4.0
Anastasia is back, and this time the Krupniks are moving to the suburbs. How much did I want their house as a kid, and how much do I still want it now? A tower room? Yes, please. These are short, funny, realistic books that have a few dated details but still very much capture the experience of still being a kid, but just starting to grow up. I'd hang out with Anastasia any day.
thehodgenator's review
4.0
Anastasia is so delightful, even when she is being a terror about moving to the suburbs.
erine's review
5.0
Deep in a nostalgic reading binge, I had forgotten how much I loved Anastasia. Her adorable baby brother who makes new friends and becomes a flasher (Flash!), her quirky but down-to-earth parents who use big words and don’t shy away from difficult topics, and Anastasia herself who is smart and curious and bold but still baffled by the weird world and irritated by childhood and adolescent realities.
I laughed until I cried.
I laughed until I cried.
melchk's review
5.0
I love Anastasia. I grew up wanting to have her parents for myself. This is an easy read and worked well for a nostalgia prompt in one of my challenges. Always enjoyable.
infosifter's review against another edition
4.0
Anastasia has dramatic feelings when her parents decide to move the family from their beloved but small city apartment to a house in the suburbs. She also starts to realize that communicating with boys can be confusing. But her new home means new opportunities and new friends. This series has the rare quality of humor on the level for children and adults at the same time.
mrskatiefitz's review
4.0
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
In this second novel about Anastasia, the Krupnik family decides to move to the suburbs. Anastasia is against the idea based on her preconceived notions about suburban life, but even she can’t object when her parents find the perfect house. Once they move in, Anastasia and her brother, Sam, now a toddler, befriend Gertrude Stein, their elderly next door neighbor, whom Anastasia desperately wants to help make new friends and break out of her shell. Anastasia also deals with her complicated feelings for a boy in her old neighborhood, who has gotten the mistaken impression that Anastasia’s little brother is physically disabled.
There is so much to like about Lois Lowry’s writing. Her dialogue reads like real conversation. Her characters have delightful quirks and flaws. She manages to understand exactly what it’s like to be an awkward twelve-year-old, but she makes it fun and not painful to read about the experience. I think what I especially like about this book is how the entire storyline is firmly grounded in family life. Contemporary middle grade fiction being published right now seems to focus more on school and friends than on family, so it’s refreshing when I read about a character whose parents are such an important part of her life, even if that character’s stories were published before I was born.
I had some questions about the authenticity of Sam’s verbal skills and even his thought processes, since he doesn’t seem like a typical two-year-old. Still, I was mostly able to buy that he was just an advanced child, because of the highly intellectual environment in which he is being raised. Also related to Sam, I appreciated that Lowry jumped ahead in time between the first and second books of this series, so that he was no longer an infant at the start of this book. I think Anastasia’s relationship to him is very interesting, and it might not have been so if there were several books where all Sam did was sleep and have his diaper changed. It’s also nice to see that Anastasia mostly likes her brother, but that there are also realistic moments of disgust with some of his toddler behaviors.
Anastasia Again! does a lovely job of exploring the family’s move to the suburbs and of highlighting the relationships young people can develop with their elderly neighbors. The dynamic between Anastasia and Gertrude Stein is much more interesting than the superficial dynamics between middle school kids that turn up in so many books, and both characters stuck with me long after I finished the story.
In this second novel about Anastasia, the Krupnik family decides to move to the suburbs. Anastasia is against the idea based on her preconceived notions about suburban life, but even she can’t object when her parents find the perfect house. Once they move in, Anastasia and her brother, Sam, now a toddler, befriend Gertrude Stein, their elderly next door neighbor, whom Anastasia desperately wants to help make new friends and break out of her shell. Anastasia also deals with her complicated feelings for a boy in her old neighborhood, who has gotten the mistaken impression that Anastasia’s little brother is physically disabled.
There is so much to like about Lois Lowry’s writing. Her dialogue reads like real conversation. Her characters have delightful quirks and flaws. She manages to understand exactly what it’s like to be an awkward twelve-year-old, but she makes it fun and not painful to read about the experience. I think what I especially like about this book is how the entire storyline is firmly grounded in family life. Contemporary middle grade fiction being published right now seems to focus more on school and friends than on family, so it’s refreshing when I read about a character whose parents are such an important part of her life, even if that character’s stories were published before I was born.
I had some questions about the authenticity of Sam’s verbal skills and even his thought processes, since he doesn’t seem like a typical two-year-old. Still, I was mostly able to buy that he was just an advanced child, because of the highly intellectual environment in which he is being raised. Also related to Sam, I appreciated that Lowry jumped ahead in time between the first and second books of this series, so that he was no longer an infant at the start of this book. I think Anastasia’s relationship to him is very interesting, and it might not have been so if there were several books where all Sam did was sleep and have his diaper changed. It’s also nice to see that Anastasia mostly likes her brother, but that there are also realistic moments of disgust with some of his toddler behaviors.
Anastasia Again! does a lovely job of exploring the family’s move to the suburbs and of highlighting the relationships young people can develop with their elderly neighbors. The dynamic between Anastasia and Gertrude Stein is much more interesting than the superficial dynamics between middle school kids that turn up in so many books, and both characters stuck with me long after I finished the story.