Fresh and exhilarating, a welcome addition to the growing middle-grade genre of girls who like girls.
A shy, quiet drummer looks for her inner Rebel Girl at rock camp.
The day before 13-year-old Melissa “Melly” Goodwin departs for Camp Rockaway, her parents make a heartbreaking announcement: They’re splitting up. At least Melly doesn’t have to deal alone; her best friend, Olivia Mendoza, a bassist, will be with her. But when Olivia deserts Melly for her crush (a boy named Noel), Melly has to go it alone. She finds herself confiding in someone who isn’t her best friend. Could carefree guitarist Adeline become more than just a new pal? She certainly makes Melly feel like her heart is full of buzzing bees. When Noel dumps Olivia, she turns back to Melly, but jealousy drives a wedge between the besties. Can Melly make room for both her best friend and a potential girlfriend? Can she step out from behind her drum kit and find the strength she needs to face the music at home? Narrator Melly is a complex blend of anger, curiosity, and creativity, appealingly laying her emotions bare for readers. Puns such as “Joan Jetty” (the boathouse) and “B-flat” (the afternoon rest period) bring character to the camp setting, which is also naturally diverse; Melly is white, Olivia is implied Latina, and Adeline is not the only brown-skinned camper.
Fresh and exhilarating, a welcome addition to the growing middle-grade genre of girls who like girls. (Fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279114-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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