Next book

THE RUNAWAYS

A 12-year-old takes a short flyer from home and finds a double cause in this earnest debut. Nick hasn’t adjusted to his mother’s new marriage; when she announces that she’s pregnant, it’s the last straw. He runs away, taking refuge in an abandoned mansion where he meets Luther, a fixture on the streets of Nick’s town who eats from garbage cans but talks like a college graduate. After an uncomfortable night, Nick turns himself in, and, dramatic gesture behind him, realizes that it’s not so bad to have a home and two caring adults. He starts to visit Luther on the sly, and also begins work on a school report about the town’s poor and homeless that takes him through a run-down neighborhood and into a soup kitchen for a talk with a real runaway. Butcher has an obvious cautionary message to impart, but allows readers to observe and draw their own conclusions from events, and Nick is more than a mouthpiece. In a shrink-wrapped ending, Nick learns that Luther is a well-known author of children’s books, driven into the streets by personal tragedy. Nick’s friendship and his report, published in the local newspaper, persuade Luther to start writing again. It’s a tidy but convincing view of the sparking of a young person’s social conscience. (Fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: March 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-55074-413-5

Page Count: 168

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998

Next book

KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES

From the Keeper of the Lost Cities series , Vol. 1

Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...

A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.

Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.

Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Aladdin

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012

Next book

MY LIFE AS A POTATO

On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.

The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.

Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.

On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: March 24, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

Close Quickview