A nice, short, feel-good story about finding your place.
A recent immigrant to the United States, Maci must find her place at a new school.
Twelve-year-old Mitsuko Masaki, now going by Maci because Mitsuko is “too hard for Americans to pronounce,” has recently moved to New York from Tokyo. All she wants to do is keep to herself and draw manga. After Maci refuses to do what her parents asked, they lay down the law: She isn’t allowed to sleep in her room until it is cleaned, and she must join the school orchestra. At school, Maci sits next to Amy, a white girl who introduces her to the comic club. During lunch, Maci usually sits, unnoticed, under the “weirdos” table, but Eli and Jayden, both boys of color, discover her and convince her to join the “above-table kids.” With new friends and the comic club, Maci begins to find her place at her new school. This short chapter book is one of a quartet about the weirdos. With themes of being the new kid, making friends, and finding where you fit in, it has an interest level for upper-elementary students, but the brevity, straightforward first-person voice, and occasional illustrations make it an easy read. Maci also works to find a balance between her Japanese culture and American culture, struggling to understand American phrases and to negotiate Japanese practices that now feel out of place, which will feel familiar to many kids in a new environment.
A nice, short, feel-good story about finding your place. (Fiction. 7-12)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8208-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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
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