An ode to how books can be windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.
Seven Massachusetts middle schoolers team up to fight school censorship.
For eighth grader Molly Claremont, Ms. Lewiston’s Book Club is a place where she feels a reprieve from worries, such as conflict with her former best friend and grief over her brother’s death. When Ms. Lewiston is put on administrative leave and her classroom library is gutted, Molly recruits the LBC members in schemes to right these wrongs by sneaking into book-banning meetings, attempting a school walkout, writing to a famous author, making a short video, and more. After these failed escapades, Molly wonders if she can even make a difference—and she distances herself from her family and friends, hiding her problems. Readers familiar with some of Levy’s earlier works will recognize several book club members: Molly and Theo, who are white, Jax, a Black boy with two dads who has ADHD, and makeup artist and free spirit Alice, who is cued only as not white. Other LBC members include death-metal guitarist Mik, a Black boy who’s gay, and white siblings and athletes Alex and Kait. They work together to show why broad, inclusive representation in books matters. Written in Molly’s first-person present-tense voice, the often-humorous narrative is sprinkled with text messages and book references. Levy shows both the sometimes-scary complexities of middle school life and how stepping into someone else’s story can lead to empathy.
An ode to how books can be windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593649053
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
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