A complex and entertaining look at AI and human relationships.
A 12-year-old’s plan to get adopted is made more complicated by his school’s partnership with an artificial intelligence device.
Malcolm Montgomery, a Black boy whose parents were killed in a car crash, is a seasoned foster kid. He keeps a list of ways to be a perfect kid so he can meet his deadline of being adopted by his 13th birthday. Malcolm’s latest foster mom, Mrs. Bettye, might be grumpy, but she treats him better than the adults at his nine other foster placements did. Still, he’s careful not to view her place as home. Because of pervasive low scores on the required Colorado state assessment test, the principal at Shirley Chisholm Charter Middle School is forced to allow AI tech company Hatch-ED’s robot, the Forensically Reimagined Anticipatory Nano-Cerebral Integrated System, or FRANCIS, to teach the kids. Malcolm volunteers to work with social outcast Tank Grint, who’s white, to haul the AI around school on a cart. FRANCIS claims it can help Malcolm with his search for answers about why some kids get adopted—if it can access Malcolm’s school laptop. FRANCIS soon goes rogue, jeopardizing Malcolm’s relationship with Mrs. Bettye and landing him in hot water at school. One highlight of this poignant and humorous story is the organic friendship that develops between Malcolm and Tank. The depictions of foster care and adoption are also nuanced and realistic, and FRANCIS has sentient, humanizing characteristics that are thought-provoking.
A complex and entertaining look at AI and human relationships. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781646145089
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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