Despite uneven pacing, offers a satisfying depiction of middle school pressures.
Seventh grader Lizzie Morris-Artino grapples with anxiety, a crush, running for office, a well-meaning but misguided mother, navigating friendships old and new, and an emotional support dog who’s more popular at school than she is.
Lizzie’s mounting worries and tension, caused by her desire to please everyone around her, manifest in her imagining worst-case scenarios. Physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and panic attacks, begin to interfere with school. Papademetriou infuses the text with humor despite the serious issues she addresses, and ultimately, Lizzie inhabits an environment that’s populated with supportive friends and family. New friend Ant is solidly in her corner, even as she contends with a nasty election cycle against an opponent who’s both popular and petty. The first-person narration contains realistic dialogue, which, along with the use of texting and social media, adds to the authenticity of Lizzie’s perspective; the adults in her life, however, filtered through her perceptions, come across as two-dimensional. The plot is slow to develop, and the obvious conclusion feels tacked on in order to neatly solve the main source of Lizzie’s difficulties. Still, readers will root for Lizzie, and she does have an empowering moment of standing up for herself, but because this scene happened so close to the end of the book, it leaves little time for a thorough resolution. Lizzie is of Greek and Scottish descent.
Despite uneven pacing, offers a satisfying depiction of middle school pressures. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781338603088
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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