Roxie and the Hooligans

Roxie and the Hooligans is a wonderful story for young readers. Although, I am an adult and I loved reading it. The descriptions of each character was hillarious. I especially loved how the Hooligans actions were described. Roxie's large pink ears reminded me of the story about an elephant named Dumbo. The stories describing Uncle Dangerfoots adventures were very easy to get lost in. The survival tips that her uncle put in his book that Roxie referred to throughout the story, seemed as if they could work in real life. This book is one that all kids should be encouraged to read, and I think that it is a great book for teachers to read to their students.

I liked this book because it is an adventure book. Roxie is a school girl with very big sugar-bowl ears. She is picked up from the trash and dumped into the sea with the hooligans. They swim to an island and live there for a while. She has to steal food and water from the thieves. Roxie is able to figure out a way to get away from the thieves who are on the island that she is stranded on. When Roxie and the hooligans are trying to escape, the helicopter zooms above and out comes Roxie's uncle. He saves them and the police catch the thieves. Roxie tells her parents and uncle all about her adventure. I think a person who is very adventurous would like this book. He or she would be amused by the way Roxie saves the day. I give it 10/10.

Roxie is proof that a cool head and kind heart can be the anecdote for bullies! Filled with action, fun, and wisdom, this book should be part of every library!

Roxie is an average girl in every way, except for her big pink round ears that stick out from the side of her head. Helvetia and her band of hooligans pick on Roxie because of her ears. So Roxie tries many ways to avoid the hooligans. One day, Roxie climbs on a dumpster to avoid the bunch of bullies but she falls in and they fall in after her. They are then transported on a trash barge to a far-away island. Roxie uses tips from her Uncle Dangerfoot to stay safe from the hooligans. But how they all eventually work together and even take direction from Roxie in order to survive and try to get rescued is a wonderful story. A terrific fast-paced story by a prolific author. Much more than I ever expected. Loved it and the illustrations were delightful as well.

Shhh! Don't make so much noise. I don't want you to scare it off. What I am holding in my hand, at this very moment, is something so rare and precious that I'm afraid to make any sudden movements for fear of startling it. What we are witnessing is the very rarely sighted Phyllis Reynolds Naylor stand alone children's book. It's not part of a series or the first in a great long line of "Roxie" books. No sir. This here's an only once-in-a-lifetime glimpsed... what's that? You want to point out that Ms. Naylor has produced AT LEAST twenty-four stand alone novels for kids in her lifetime? Oh fine. Be like that. I was trying to make a point about how many series titles Naylor has produced since she began writing (six series with forty-four books in total by my count). It's amazing she has time to eat, let alone come out with anything of quality. I guess that's the most striking thing about Ms. Naylor. Some authors who shall remain nameless (unless you e-mail me, and then I'll spill everything) write tons of books and their quality goes down. Ms. Naylor writes tons of books and if anything they get more and more original and enjoyable. "Roxie and the Hooligans" is just the latest example. "Roxie Warbler was neither fat nor thin, short nor tall, pretty nor plain, smart nor stupid". Her ears, on the other hand, were extraordinary. Large and lovely, they unfortunately attract attention from the wrong sort of people. Hooligan-type people. For you see, at Roxie's school are four nasty bullies (or hooligans) that like nothing better than to tease poor Roxie whenever they get the chance. And as intolerable as such a situation might be, it's made all the worse when the hooligans and Roxie accidentally wind up on an abandoned island when an attempt to glue underwear to Roxie's head goes awry. Now our heroine is trapped with the four people she fears the most on an island where there are murderous cutthroats who are perfectly prepared to kill ALL the kids if they can get their hands on them. Roxie hasn't any food or any water, but she does have one thing. A cool head and lots of knowledge from the book, "Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How To Survive Them". Everything is up to her. There's a certain level of readership that gets ignored time and time again by publishers and authors alike. In my library system they're called Young Readers. They're the kids who have progressed to chapter books, but they still need simple words, pictures, and large fonts to help them through their reading. Books for this group exist, but they aren't always that ... um ... good. Lots of series books like "The Chronicles of Droon" or "A to Z Mysteries" fall under this definition. So you can imagine how happy I was to find "Roxie" not only a delightful read, but a rather thoughtful one as well. Characters begin as stereotypes (Roxie excluded) and then grow small souls for themselves through their sufferings. The book also has the amusing