by Jacquetta Nammar Feldman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 17, 2023
A busy blend of baseball, natural disasters, and coming-of-age.
A big family comes together.
When Hurricane Harvey blows into town, the Puttermans are already dealing with a lot. Twelve-year-old twins Sammy and Matty were stars of their local baseball team, but when Matty leaves the field in the middle of a game, refusing to talk about why he’s quitting baseball, it shakes Sammy’s confidence as the only girl on the team and ruptures their close relationship. Their slightly older cousin, Becky, is half-heartedly preparing for her bat mitzvah but wishes her family would take her feline-inspired art projects more seriously. When the twins’ house floods, their family—along with their grandparents and elderly neighbor—move in with the other Puttermans since Becky and her parents have plenty of room (if less patience). Personalities, egos, and interests collide and cohere as the extended Putterman family learns how to navigate each other and their developing needs in this smaller space. Houston’s baseball team, the Astros, plays a large role in the story, and at least a passing interest in the sport will help maintain interest; the plot starts to drag halfway through, as the Astros’ trajectory stands in for more character- or plot-driven conflict. All main characters are Jewish and implied Ashkenazi, making the African American Vernacular English–derived title (a quote from the book’s only Black character) an unfortunate choice.
A busy blend of baseball, natural disasters, and coming-of-age. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-303443-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013
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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by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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by Valerie Worth & illustrated by Natalie Babbitt
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