Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up.
Aspiring scientist Hope Roberts is starting her first day at JFK Middle School, where her advanced classes will separate her from her best friend, Sam Bowers, for the first time.
Though the friends make a pact to keep close, different classes and extracurricular interests forge a distance. After surviving the first week of middle school, Hope joins the science club, which is given the immediate task of preparing for the year’s first science competition. Though Hope and her new friend, Camila Rivera, conceive the robotics coding idea for the competition project, the boys mostly dominate the actualization of the project. The girls express their frustration to each other, but they continue on as team players. Hope gets so caught up in trying to prove the boys wrong that her anxiety leads to the destruction of the entire project. Hope’s supportive parents offer her the insight she needs to face her mistakes and work through them. A diverse cast is depicted via illustrations and naming convention. Biracial (black/white) Hope is illustrated with brown skin and “big hair” (referred to multiple times, once in tandem with her dog). Sam has pale skin, and Camilla declares Guatemalan heritage. Hope fumbles by stereotyping Camilla as an assumed Spanish speaker; the authors arguably make the same gaffe by casting Señora Lopez, the Spanish teacher, with swaying hoop earrings.
Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-32940-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
