A leisurely character study with a useful lesson.
Fifth-grader Lucy Tanaka's attempt to surprise a classmate with a kind gesture goes wrong.
Following Chloe on the Bright Side (2016), this second episode in Sheinmel’s Kindness Club series stars designer-to-be Lucy Tanaka, who worries that her bond with friends Chloe Silver and Theo Barnes (both are white) will weaken if they aren’t always engaged in the acts of kindness their club stands for. Her latest idea is a surprise birthday party for classmate Serena Kappas at the Tanaka family’s bowling alley. Serena’s mother has just died. Mixed-race Lucy knows something about being motherless; her Afro-Japanese-American mother died when she was only 1, but it still makes her sad sometimes. But she’s sure a bowling party will make Serena’s day memorable. When it turns out that Lucy’s Japanese-American father, distracted by his failing business, hadn’t agreed and wasn’t in a position to supply a party, and worse, that Serena didn’t want it, Lucy feels horrible. Instead of making people happy, she made people sad. The author allows the complications to build slowly as she develops her title character and demonstrates the ins and outs of fifth-grade friendship. Lucy’s first-person narration reveals her wonderful creativity, her emotional fragility, and her generous but impulsive nature, which doesn’t always stop for second thoughts. Readers caught up in her worldview will applaud the resolution.
A leisurely character study with a useful lesson. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-117-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to...
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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