This Christian-centered story deftly limns the conflicting emotions of kids who have experienced loss.
A young girl grieving her mother’s death discovers the healing power of family, friends, and God in Templeton’s middle-grade novel.
Mira is 10 years old when she loses her mom to cancer. At first, she remains in staunch denial that her mother would ever leave her, even believing that the entire funeral is fake. She doesn’t really start to accept her loss until she meets up with her mother’s best friend, Sylvia. Mira navigates various bumps throughout the grieving process—including her friends pulling away, a new life in her father and stepmother’s house, and panic attacks at school. She also wrestles with immense guilt over a fight she had with her mother before she died. Mira eventually begins to find solace in her church’s grief support group and starts to keep her tears in a jar as proof of her love and grief: “I move the jar to catch the tears from the other eye. I think of Mom’s face. Before long, I’ve made a ring of tears at the bottom of my jar. It’s a little silly, but maybe there’s something to it. I screw the lid onto my jar. I can’t believe it’s come to this.” Sylvia encourages Mira to continue making art that, along with her faith in God, helps her eventually move forward while honoring the memory of her mother. Based on the author’s own experiences, the novel skillfully and sensitively tackles the wildly swinging emotions that can come with deep grief. While parts of Mara’s narrative voice come across as oddly old-fashioned for a girl her age (“I hear her blaspheme, which Mom taught me is swearing, using Jesus’ name”), the dialogue is largely natural and age-appropriate. Steeped in Christianity, Templeton’s story is likely to provide deep comfort to those who observe the faith and would prove an excellent resource for Christian youth groups.
This Christian-centered story deftly limns the conflicting emotions of kids who have experienced loss.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781738881802
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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