A little older and wiser after receiving only an honorable mention in the school science fair, inveterate list-maker Phineas “Mac” Maguire revises his fourth-grade goals from “1. To be the best fourth-grade scientist ever. 2. To be the best fourth-grade scientist ever. 3. To be the best fourth-grade scientist ever,” to a rather less ambitious set. This revision itself undergoes more changes as Mac struggles to convince the population of Woodbrook Elementary School of the wonders of slime molds, to negotiate a bearable relationship with his Teenage Girl Space Alien babysitter and to manage the class-president campaign of his best friend Ben, who everyone, Ben included, agrees is not presidential material. Mac’s chatty first-person narration is punctuated by list after list, his character marked by both a disarming awareness of his own flaws and an unshakable faith in his friends’ strengths. His manufacture of penicillin for a friend’s Girl Scout badge is both informative and done entirely without ego, just one example of what makes Mac one of the most charmingly engaging new characters in the modern chapter-book scene. The mold experiments appended are an added bonus. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-0196-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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