A moving, hopeful tale about confronting depression.
Suffering from depression, a girl erases words from a magical dictionary, hoping in the process to also erase her sadness.
Zia, a sixth grader with a gift for making up words, lived happily with her mother until Shadoom came into her life a year ago. Shadoom is Zia’s name for the “room of shadows” now filling her with “fear and hurt and sadness.” Afraid everyone will think she’s a “hopeless weirdling,” Zia stops hanging out with her best friends, hides in the girls’ bathroom at lunch, and refuses to tell her mother, who’s stressed enough working two jobs, paying bills, and caring for Zia’s grouchy Greek immigrant grandmother who has dementia. Zia wants to fix herself, but she doesn’t know what’s wrong. Discovering her grandmother’s mysterious dictionary that comes with a charmed eraser, Zia experiments with erasing words and feels empowered as they vanish from the world. While removing words that trigger Shadoom, Zia erases fear and then pain with dire consequences and must find a way to undo her actions. Narrating in the first-person present tense, Zia’s honest voice adds immediacy and credibility to her chronicle of the frightening onset of her depression, her lonely efforts to conceal it, her totally misguided attempts to magically erase it, and the realization she doesn’t have to cope on her own. Definitions of words key to Zia’s story introduce each chapter, reinforcing the dictionary theme.
A moving, hopeful tale about confronting depression. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35099-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasing premise for book lovers.
A fantasy-loving bookworm makes a wonderful, terrible bargain.
When sixth grader Poppy Woodlock’s historic preservationist parents move the family to the Oregon coast to work on the titular stately home, Poppy’s sure she’ll find magic. Indeed, the exiled water nymph in the manor’s ruined swimming pool grants a wish, but: “Magic isn’t free. It cosssts.” The price? Poppy’s favorite book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In return she receives Sampson, a winged lion cub who is everything Poppy could have hoped for. But she soon learns that the nymph didn’t take just her own physical book—she erased Narnia from Poppy’s world. And it’s just the first loss: Soon, Poppy’s grandmother’s journal’s gone, then The Odyssey, and more. The loss is heartbreaking, but Sampson’s a wonderful companion, particularly as Poppy’s finding middle school a tough adjustment. Hartman’s premise is beguiling—plenty of readers will identify with Poppy, both as a fellow bibliophile and as a kid struggling to adapt. Poppy’s repeatedly expressed faith that unveiling Sampson will bring some sort of vindication wears thin, but that does not detract from the central drama. It’s a pity that the named real-world books Poppy reads are notably lacking in diversity; a story about the power of literature so limited in imagination lets both itself and readers down. Main characters are cued White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. Chapters open with atmospheric spot art. (This review has been updated to reflect the final illustrations.)
A pleasing premise for book lovers. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780316448222
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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