Skims the surface in exploring commonly addressed issues.
Identity struggles, moving, and navigating relationships with family and peers are at the center of this middle-grade novel.
Amelia Gray, who prefers blending into the crowd, is experiencing her 39th last day of school—that’s approximately one new classroom per month. Surprisingly, Amelia’s life is actually fairly routinized; for example, she and her itinerant handyman dad pick a different subject to master via YouTube in each new town. When they arrive in their latest town near Pittsburgh, Amelia notices that each student’s yearbook picture is captioned with their crowning achievement. She aims to find her special skill over summer break. Amelia flits from one hobby to the next, trying her hand at track, journalism, and even drama, using a different name for each. Trouble ensues when her dog, Biscotti, has a run-in with Ketchup, the dog belonging to Finn, another new kid. Schedule conflicts and other mishaps also create a challenge for Amelia as she attempts to keep her multiple identities hidden. The lives she and her dad have built together since the death of her mother in childbirth may be about to change forever as Dad begins to put down roots. The novel would have benefited from stronger character development to bolster readers’ emotional connections with the themes touched on, including the search for identity during the preteen years, peer relationships, and single-parent families’ experiences. Main characters read White.
Skims the surface in exploring commonly addressed issues. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-17372-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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
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
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