It’s an eye-catching read without a whole lot of depth.
Sixth-grader Jake Mathews’ popularity has just fallen “off a cliff and [sunk] to the bottom of the ocean.”
That’s what happens when your dad gets a new job and you’re forced to change schools in the middle of the year. Despite his frequently asserted “AWESOMENESS,” the move from Florida to Maryland is a blow to Jake’s seemingly unshakable self-confidence. But despite an older sister with a propensity for going ballistic and an intimidating search for a regular lunch table, Jake is determined to make the steep climb back up the social ladder. This high-concept middle-grade novel appears to be aimed directly at fans of series like Diary of a Wimpy Kid (his new school’s Kinney Elementary). Jake’s first-person narrative looks and feels like a sixth-grader’s real-time memoir, complete with water stains, doodles and examples of Jake’s signature Kid Cards. Though Jake’s bravado is grating at first, readers will easily relate to his desire to fit in and avoid the social land mines that litter most middle school landscapes. Unfortunately, readers are only given a brief introduction to the band of “Misfit Toys” that Jake ultimately befriends. The novel would have benefited had Jake spent a little less time on his own awesomeness and a little more time letting readers get to know his new posse.
It’s an eye-catching read without a whole lot of depth. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-46692-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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