A solid mystery that discusses data privacy and journalistic integrity.
After Ashley filmed Coach Kelly dancing in her sports bra and it went viral, she was relieved of her role as reporter for the school news program.
Together with her best friend, cameraperson Maya, and their video editor friend, Brielle, she forms the Renegade Reporters. The sixth graders decide to start a YouTube show about news events in Baltimore. Ashley discovers that Van Ness, the media company sponsoring the school news and creator of the software students use, has selected her classmate Harry, the lead anchor, as a young creative to feature on their website. Ash wants to interview company founder Maria Van Ness because she feels it’s unethical for them to promote Harry without disclosing their sponsorship. When she and Maya show up at the company headquarters, they accidentally discover that Van Ness is collecting personal data from their young users. The novel then becomes a lesson on journalistic investigation and cybersecurity, with the team researching, interviewing experts, and zeroing in on their target. Whether middle-grade readers will be concerned about this important issue is questionable, but the unfolding of the investigation is skillfully handled, and kids will cheer for the perspicacious young reporters. Jewish Ash has two dads; Maya is cued as South Asian Indian, and the cover shows Brielle as Black but nothing in the text corroborates this.
A solid mystery that discusses data privacy and journalistic integrity. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-32303-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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