A short but well-developed tale about facing anxiety and making friends.
A young girl confronts her fear of sleeping over at a friend’s house in this second book in a series for early readers.
Roman (Oh Susannah: It’s in the Bag, 2017, etc.) returns to the story of nearly 8-year-old Susannah Maya Logan, who faces a new problem: her friend Lola has invited her for a sleepover, but Lola’s brother, Kai, claims that the house is haunted, and Susannah is scared. She’s also reluctant to explain this (“She was a big girl now. How could she tell her mother she was afraid to stay at Lola’s house?”), setting the stage for misunderstanding and conflict. She soon learns about other children’s fears—and about adults’ tendency to use “I’m afraid” in a figurative, rather than literal, sense—and she decides to go to Lola’s house after all: “She had to do this. She had to go in there for Lola.” However, her fears endure as Kai teases her about ghosts and pulls pranks. The girls finally confront Kai with a prank of their own, and Susannah learns that the spooky noises in the house are part of a surprise that her parents and Lola have been planning. The book’s nearly 50-page length and vocabulary make it appropriate for readers near Susannah’s age, and although the fears that the characters confront—clowns, unicorns, being replaced as a best friend—may not impress adult readers, they’re given the right weight for a young audience. The book deals obliquely with issues of diversity; there’s no mention of race in the text, but the illustrations depict Lola as dark-skinned, and at another point, Susannah explains the color green to a blind friend (“When you go really fast, that’s green”). Roman ties up most of the plot threads neatly but also leaves a clear starting point for the next installment in the series. Overall, it’s a solid story with clear appeal for its intended readership.
A short but well-developed tale about facing anxiety and making friends.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-947188-13-6
Page Count: 62
Publisher: Chelshire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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