A clever, uplifting, and entertaining story.
A sharp middle schooler with sky-high aspirations solves a mystery while navigating new friendships, sisterhood, and chronic migraines in Reed’s middle-grade novel.
For 12-year-old budding astrophotographer Quinn Knight, a family move from Ohio to Texas isn’t totally awful. Sure, the weather is a trigger for her migraines, and her older sister, Vivica, has already claimed her throne as eighth grade class president and star of the school musical. But her eldest sister, Georgie, with whom she’s close, has moved out of her college dorm to live with them, and their new town, Hill Springs, has very little light pollution (perfect for stargazing). Her new bedroom has a skylight, a high-powered telescope, and a great view of the star cluster Pleiades. In the early morning before her first day at her new school, Quinn tries to ease her nerves by taking some photos, only to be shocked by two things: The stars appear to her to move “like a swarm of crazed fireflies that inhaled a box of Pop Rocks,” and she sees someone sneaking up to their house and leaving a note; it turns out to be a threatening missive for Vivica—the first of several. Quinn is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and protect her sister. With her new friends Xavier and Tiya, she exercises her passion for scientific reasoning to analyze evidence, look for clues, and compile a list of suspects—all while honing her astrophotography skills, coping with chronic pain, and navigating middle school. Reed’s well-paced mystery is imbued with comedy and heartfelt moments. Quinn is a smart and spirited protagonist and narrator whose wry humor and can-do attitude will make her relatable to young readers. Throughout, Reed depicts Quinn’s struggles with migraines, as well as other characters’ health concerns, including epilepsy, asthma, and food allergies, with honesty and sensitivity. Quinn and her family are depicted as white, and there are numerous supporting characters of color, including Xavier, who’s Latine, and Tiya, who’s South Asian. The novel’s positive portrayal of young, STEM-inclined female characters is refreshing as well.
A clever, uplifting, and entertaining story.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781632997838
Page Count: 285
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
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