This tender, easy exploration of friendship, family, and first romance hits the mark.
Two seventh graders discover each other while learning that middle school changes can be a time for exciting, if sometimes awkward, growth.
Lily is used to doing everything with besties Maddie and Sasha, but after they make the elite soccer team and she doesn’t, she soon has time on her hands. Popular Sienna is at a turning point, too, and she takes an interest in Lily. Specifically, Sienna wants to set Lily up with her childhood friend Will. Problem is, Sienna wants to dictate Lily’s every move. For his part, Will is definitely interested in Lily, but he doesn’t want bossy Sienna involved, afraid she’ll gossip to the entire student body. It’s already bad enough that Will’s widowed dad puts his son’s every move and mood under the microscope during his Dr. Dad podcasts! The third-person limited narration bounces back and forth between Lily and Will. They begin a tentative friendship, texting and talking in person. Misunderstandings and missed cues are at the root of several clumsy, wonderful moments. As they support each other and learn from others in their lives, the tweens gradually claim their own voices and gain autonomy. This growth enables them to be better friends to others among the well-developed cast, encouraging them to speak up, too. Characters read white.
This tender, easy exploration of friendship, family, and first romance hits the mark. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780063140738
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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
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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