by Anika Fajardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2020
Multilayered and convincing, the book will have readers rooting for its sweet and smart protagonist.
It is the summer before sixth grade, and Eddie Aguado’s life is taking several unexpected turns.
Eddie’s best friend has moved away; he’s looking forward to the arrival of his older half brother from Colombia; and he’s just partnered with a new girl in town to enter a fishing competition. Neither one of them can fish, but Eddie is hoping his brother, Big Eddie, will teach him. Eddie’s biracial. His Colombian father died when he was little and he hardly remembers him now, but he has his dad’s black hair and brown eyes (his mom is white), and his skin is “the color of coffee ice cream.” Because of his looks he’s asked where he’s from, when all he’s ever known is Minneapolis, and he wonders if he can be Colombian if he doesn’t speak Spanish. Summer suddenly changes when Big Eddie announces he’s not coming because his abuela is very sick and asks if Little Eddie can come to Cartagena instead. Though she’s not his abuela, she would like to meet him. It is this monthlong stay in a new environment, culture, and language followed by his subsequent return to Minnesota that helps Eddie come to an understanding of family, friendship, and identity. It all unspools in Eddie’s perceptive present-tense narration, which is both poetic and believable.
Multilayered and convincing, the book will have readers rooting for its sweet and smart protagonist. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4983-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
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by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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by Christina Li
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by Christina Li
by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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by Lois Lowry ; illustrated by Jonathan Stroh
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by Lois Lowry
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