A perfect balance of morally complex and extremely fun.
Young people engage with social change in coastal Maine.
Still healing from the death of 7-year-old Wally, the Helinski family is slowly settling into life in Port City, Maine, after leaving Wisconsin in search of a fresh start. Sixth grader Zinnia struggles to find her place in her new school, wanting to befriend cool, nice girls like Jade and Anji but dogged at every step by Trevor, who shows his affection by relentlessly teasing her. But when the Anand family moves in upstairs, Zinnia discovers that they are part of a community of Real-Life Superheroes, “shining a light” on social problems and bringing “help to the helpless and hope to the hopeless.” Zinnia’s 19-year-old Aunt Willow, also struggling to find herself, comes to visit and joins them on their missions to provide food, shelter, and care, all while dressed in attention-grabbing superhero costumes. With its clear, accessible writing, this suspenseful story masterfully juggles many topics: grief; self-assurance; the need for individual, collective, and systemic approaches to ableism, poverty, and other social ills; and the fine line between “extreme altruism” and self-aggrandizement. Never preachy, the story includes a suspenseful and satisfying climax involving a ring of coffee shop thieves, with every thread satisfyingly resolved. Zinnia and her family are White; the multiracial supporting cast is well developed.
A perfect balance of morally complex and extremely fun. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-31443-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
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