A well-developed story of navigating the ups and downs of life on the homefront.
A mother and daughter keep secrets from one another in this World War II–era story.
Being a lefty with a devastating submarine delivery, 14-year-old Wisconsinite Millie Bauer is not only good enough on the mound to play with the boys in sandlot games, but has caught the eye of the local high school’s baseball coach. Her love of the game is tempered, though, when she intercepts a crushing telegram announcing that her beloved big brother George has gone MIA in Italy—news that she keeps from her hardworking, recently widowed mother, Helen. This becomes easier when, sometime later, Helen suddenly begins spending so much of her free time volunteering to work with wounded soldiers down at the Red Cross facility that the two seldom see one another. Helen, it turns out, is concealing something too…but Kelly drops in enough clues that alert readers shouldn’t be too surprised by the denouement. Along with folding in plenty of baseball talk and action, the author adds enough details about daily life to give the tale a clear sense of the period. He also leads his talented young pitcher all the way to a tryout with the Minneapolis Millerettes of the All-American Girls League, though that subplot’s sudden ending makes this less a baseball story than one about small-town wartime life and the anxieties of having a loved one fighting overseas.
A well-developed story of navigating the ups and downs of life on the homefront. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781644460184
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Rowe Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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