Skunked!: Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet by Jacqueline Kelly (review)

It’s not easy being a girl with a mind for science in a small Texas town at the dawn of the twentieth century. Nor is it easy being sole sister in a house full of brothers—particularly when younger brother Travis, who cannot resist turning a stray into a pet, relies on her for veterinary counsel when his husbandry skills inevitably go awry. Such is the seriocomic burden of Calpurnia Tate, late of Kelly’s older novels (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, BCCB 7/09, etc.) and now narrator of an easy reader series, Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet. It is unreasonable to expect Travis to leave a motherless skunk kit whimpering in a tree hole, and Callie understands that her role is to help him hide it from their disapproving family, keep it fed, and wrangle information from her naturalist grandfather and the town vet, Dr. Pritzker, as needed. When Travis discovers a second skunk, the runt of the abandoned litter, hanging on for dear life, Callie has to up her game, figuring out how to keep it supplied with hot bricks for warmth (a success), how to get milk down its tiny throat (another success), how to keep both the kits safe from the family dog (yet another success), and ultimately, how to save the teacher from getting sprayed by Stinky and Winky when Travis smuggles them into school (a sorry failure). Since it is unlikely that readers of Kelly’s novels will “read down” into this younger series, it is left to the adults familiar with Evolution and its sequel to appreciate how the author has retained the tone, humor, and family affection while paring plot down to a single well-structured, extended episode. Expect a fresh crop of Calpurnia readers to simply enjoy this on its own considerable merits. Final illustrations not seen.