A lyrical and sensitively rendered coming-of-age tale.
In former Pixar animator Barillaro’s debut novel, a girl must spend the summer at her grandparents’ Canadian island house when her mother’s pregnancy turns risky.
Although Ava Amato, 11, loves the island, this time she’s preoccupied with worries. Are the twins, in utero, more important than her mother’s life? When Ava witnesses a woodpecker’s death, she believes she is cursed, especially after Nonna tells her that a bird in the house is said to foretell death. Ava makes a deal with the dead bird: Her mother must survive even if the twins don’t. In an effort to stave off the curse, she rescues two robin eggs she finds and raises the babies, with her grandmother’s help. She eventually opens up about the deal to Cody MacDonald, an 11-year-old boy visiting the lake with his dad after his parents’ recent divorce. Though initially she finds him brash, a friendship slowly sparks, and when a perilous situation arises during a big storm, Ava must summon her swimming skills and courage to save the day. Warm intergenerational relationships, strongly drawn characters, lyrical descriptions of nature, and nuanced depictions of Ava’s worries create an engrossing read that explores the boundary between childhood and adolescence. Ava is of Italian and Korean heritage; Cody presents White. Barillaro's occasional, delicate watercolors and vignettes in the margins accompany this quietly powerful story.
A lyrical and sensitively rendered coming-of-age tale. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781536224542
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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