An encouraging portrait of living with anxiety.
Eleven-year-old June Delancey is determined to be more lion than mouse.
June and her mom, Corinne, live in tiny Franklin, Tennessee. June’s father has never been in the picture, and her mom, who effortlessly attracts male attention, has had some unfortunate boyfriends. The little family barely scrapes by on Corinne’s salary as a librarian for teens; talented Corinne never finished culinary school but sometimes sells her delicious creations for extra income. June, who takes medication and is in therapy, struggles with anxiety, and her compulsive hair-pulling has made her a target for bullies. The summer before middle school, she impulsively shaves her head, hoping to silence the “whatifs” constantly swirling in her mind. It doesn’t work. However, she meets new friends: Homer Juarez, a friendly, poetry-quoting boy, wants June to teach him chess, and lonely widower Luis Silva, a keen gardener, sparks in June a love for flowers. June makes assumptions about Homer based on his soccer playing and private school attendance, while he—unaware of her outcast social status—perceives June differently than she’s used to. When a little garden on library property that Luis helps June create is threatened by the misanthropic head librarian, June must speak up despite her fears. The novel offers a compassionate portrayal of anxiety’s toll and a sweetly supportive mother-daughter relationship. Secondary characters are less well developed. June and her mom are assumed White; some of the supporting cast is cued Latine and Black.
An encouraging portrait of living with anxiety. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8602-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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