A celebratory story of acceptance and creative expression.
At the theater camp of her dreams, an autistic 11-year-old is determined to be the star.
Maya can’t believe she’s going to attend musical theater day camp with “THE Irene Brown, legendary theater director.” And this summer, the camp will be putting on a performance of The Drowsy Chaperone, which is only Maya’s “favorite play of all time.” Obviously, Irene Brown will see that Maya is perfect for the starring role: She knows all the songs and everything about the show, and she even has a homemade shirt with The Drowsy Chaperone written on it. So why does Maya’s mother keep telling her not to take the starring role for granted? This is obviously just another one of her mother’s autism rules, like “Don’t chew on your hair” and “Don’t talk too much about musicals.” Maya’s even making new friends, but they get mad at her for no reason—she’s just trying to be helpful when she corrects their mistakes. She doesn’t want to always pretend to be “Maya in Public,” her most well-rehearsed role, but she does want to have friends. Can she be happily, obsessively perfectionist about theater and still be liked? Nuances and the messiness of growing up enrich Maya’s satisfying journey: Painfully, ultimately joyfully, she navigates the weirdness of friendships with neurotypical kids. Maya is white; Irene Brown is Black, and there’s racial diversity among the supporting characters.
A celebratory story of acceptance and creative expression. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781773218502
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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