Eliza’s personal growth is full of realistic hopes and challenges that will resonate with many readers.
A girl who has trouble following through finds a reason to stick with her martial arts class.
Eleven-year-old Eliza Bing will do anything to take a cake-decorating summer class with her friend Tony. Unfortunately, Eliza has a history of quitting new activities, and her parents tell her no. Determined to change their minds, Eliza negotiates a deal: If she finishes a taekwondo class over the summer, she can take the baking class in the fall. With no interest in martial arts, Eliza, who has ADHD, has created a real challenge for herself. The dobok robe is hot and scratchy, and the Korean words are impossible to pronounce. She even has to practice with Madison, the beautiful cheerleader who has bullied Eliza in the past. But Eliza realizes the biggest obstacle to her success is her own difficulty focusing. While striving to finish the martial arts class in order to frost cakes in the future, Eliza discovers a new strength she never knew she had. Van Vleet portrays a loving nuclear family that finds constructive ways to work with Eliza’s attention-deficit challenges. Will Eliza be able to finish the class when an unexpected injury jeopardizes her chance to prove her persistence to her parents? The anticipation builds as her yellow-belt exam quickly approaches.
Eliza’s personal growth is full of realistic hopes and challenges that will resonate with many readers. (endnote, glossary) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2944-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
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
An insubstantial story that offers a prosocial message.
Two boys equally blessed with both talent and ego vie for supremacy in their school’s annual “creative storytelling competition.”
J is “by far the best artist in the entire fifth grade”; K has “become known as the best writer in the entire fifth grade.” Naturally, each one is determined to crush it in The Contest, and each decides an illustrated story is the way to go. The competitive boys try to undermine one another by passing along fake tips for success, each hoping to destroy his opponent’s story. K advises J to “write what you DON’T know” and to use sixth-person narration. “J’s Secrets to Drawing Really Good” are just as catastrophic and include drawing with your nondominant hand and inserting mistakes to keep readers engaged. Creative hijinks ensue. Craft and Alexander have become known on social media for the jocular trash talk they heap on each other; J and K are their fictional child avatars. As an internet bit doled out in small doses, their frenemy-ship is amusing; as a sustained story about storytelling, it’s thin on both character and plot development. Authorial interjections exhort readers to look up 75-cent vocabulary, often used in barbs directed at each other; the latter feel like in-jokes more than playful attempts to engage young readers. Kids may enjoy spotting references to popular children’s authors among the characters’ names, and budding authors and illustrators will benefit from the advice. J and K are both Black; their classmates and teachers are racially diverse.
An insubstantial story that offers a prosocial message. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780316582681
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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