Relatable, age-appropriate, and more important now than ever.
Years after a fundamental disagreement tears their family in half, it’s up to 12-year-old cousins Alice and Bee to clean up a mess that’s too big for the grown-ups.
Alice and Bee are finally allowed the opportunity to get to know one another when they gather in Minnesota for their grandparents’ anniversary party. Though they couldn’t be more different, their friendship is immediate and electric. Alice has green hair, lives in liberal Seattle, loves roller derby, and is involved in social justice activism. Bee is a bookworm living in a conservative Minnesota town; her values lean on those of her Lutheran church. Their precious visit is cut short after yet another explosive family argument. This co-authored story is told from the cousins’ dual perspectives. Alice and Bee uncover a painful family secret, and they have to stand up to the stubborn adults in their family and face the prospect of reopening complex wounds in order to maintain their relationship. When the Covid-19 pandemic shuts down the United States, the girls must face their differences in values head-on amid tragedies that hit both worldwide and close to home. The girls tenderly share their innermost selves with one another in conversational text message threads that deftly and realistically explore themes of sexuality, abortion, race, and identity with a light touch. Alice and Bee are white; Alice’s best friend is Black, and Bee’s best friend is a transracially adopted Vietnamese American girl.
Relatable, age-appropriate, and more important now than ever. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780823456970
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
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