Roxie and the Hooligans [Hardcover]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author), Alexandra Boiger (Illustrator)

Book Description

What do you do if you're buried in an avalanche? •

Roxie Warbler knows what to do in all kinds of situations. And she's learned it all from her favorite book: Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them. But there's one situation Roxie doesn't know how to handle and that's dealing with Helvetia's Hooligans, the meanest band of bullies in school.

Then Roxie and the hooligans are stranded together on a desert island, the hideout of a couple of criminals on the lam. Can five kids, armed with only a load of survival tactics and a little bit of teamwork, vanquish the villains and find their way home?

• Do not panic. Dig a hole around yourself and spit. The saliva will fall downward, telling you which direction is up.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-In this beginning chapter book, nine-year-old Roxie Warbler knows just what to do if she finds herself buried in an avalanche, but she doesn't know what to do about Helvetia's Hooligans. The gang at Public School Number Thirty-Seven has chosen her to be Victim of the Year, thanks to her ears, which stick straight out. The Hooligans chase Roxie into the Dumpster, fall into it themselves, and everyone is soon spilled onto a barge being pulled out to sea. The children end up stranded on an island with a couple of nasty thieves. With only the survival tips Roxie remembers from Uncle Dangerfoot's stories of his fantastical adventures with famous thrill-seeker and author Lord Thistlebottom to help her, Roxie finds herself leading the four hungry, thirsty, and scared bullies to safety. Full-page pencil illustrations perfectly complement this clever story that will leave readers cheering for Roxie as she proves to be as successful an adventurer as her famous uncle.-Kristine M. Casper, Huntington Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-5. Nine-year-old Roxie Warbler wishes she were brave like Uncle Dangerfoot and his adventurous colleague, Lord Thistlebottom, whose book, Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them, she has practically memorized. Instead, she is afraid of many things, especially Helvetia's Hooligans, school bullies who harass her. After a playground confrontation spills over into fantasy and the kids find themselves on a deserted island facing hunger, thirst, and robbers on the lam, Roxie creatively applies Lord Thistlebottom's advice to help her survive, increase her confidence, and change the Hooligans from foes to friends. Part adventure, part comedy, part sympathetic portrayal of coping with bullying, Naylor's latest, written in droll, slightly formal prose, mixes fantasy, absurdity, and reality in a way that never diminishes or overwhelms the story's heart. Boiger's black-and-white illustrations catch the energy of Naylor's over-the-top yet sympathetically portrayed characters. Shelle Rosenfeld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416902430
• ISBN-13: 978-1416902430
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,353,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I guess I've been writing for about as long as I can remember. Telling stories, anyway, if not writing them down. I had my first short story published when I was sixteen, and wrote stories to help put myself through college, planning to become a clinical psychologist. By the time I graduated with a BA degree, however, I decided that writing was really my first love, so I gave up plans for graduate school and began writing full time.

I'm not happy unless I spend some time writing every day. It's as though pressure builds up inside me, and writing even a little helps to release it. On a hard-writing day, I write about six hours. Tending to other writing business, answering mail, and just thinking about a book takes another four hours. I spend from three months to a year on a children's book, depending on how well I know the characters before I begin and how much research I need to do. A novel for adults, because it's longer, takes a year or more. When my work is going well, I wake early in the mornings, hoping it's time to get up. When the writing is hard and the words are flat, I'm not very pleasant to be around.

Getting an idea for a book is the easy part. Keeping other ideas away while I'm working on one story is what's difficult. My books are based on things that have happened to me, things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings. The best part about writing is the moment a character comes alive on paper, or when a place that existed only in my head becomes real. There are no bands playing at this moment, no audience applauding--a very solitary time, actually--but it's what I like most. I've now had more than 120 books published, and about 2000 short stories, articles and poems.

I live in Bethesda, Maryland, with my husband, Rex, a speech pathologist, who's the first person to read my manuscripts when they're finished. Our sons, Jeff and Michael, are grown now, but along with their wives and children, we often enjoy vacations together in the mountains or at the ocean. When I'm not writing, I like to hike, swim, play the piano and attend the theater.

I'm lucky to have my family, because they have contributed a great deal to my books. But I'm also lucky to have the troop of noisy, chattering characters who travel with me inside my head. As long as they are poking, prodding, demanding a place in a book, I have things to do and stories to tell.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Survival of the fittest (i.e. person with the largest ears), March 15, 2006

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roxie and the Hooligans (Hardcover)

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 idea of having Roxie repeat advice taken from Lord Thistlebottom's book when she has the need. If I were to summarize this book, I might call it the practical application of all those how-to-survive-a-crocodile type books that adults seem so enamored of.

Now as a children's librarian I often get requests from concerned parents asking me to recommend books for their children that talk about dealing with bullies. This, obviously, would not be the first book to leap into anyone's head. Be that as it may, it's a great anti-bully statement. Naylor acknowledges right up front that for those kids that don't conform to the rigid sameness of their peers, they are bound to wind up bullied in some way at some time. The hooligans, however, are given their humanity when they constantly find themselves relying on their earful companion. Accompanied by amusing illustrations by artist Alexandra Boiger (of the recent smash hit picture book title, "While Mama Had a Small Little Chat) the book is pure enjoyment through and through. For any kid that likes adventure, cutthroats, and kids surviving on their own, this is a great read. And you know what? If Naylor wants to make this a series and add another chapter to Roxie's adventures, I don't think I'd mind one bit. Highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful!!, August 20, 2007

By 

CookieBooky (www.CookieBooky.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roxie and the Hooligans (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Roxie and the hooligans, November 4, 2007

By 

Rukmini (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roxie and the Hooligans (Hardcover)

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.