A compelling look at familial support that comes from unexpected people and places.
A 10-year-old Black girl goes on a quest to try to reunite her family.
Sundae Williams lives in Chicago with her little brother, Miles, and Nanna Jo, their grandmother, who’s been losing her memory lately (their parents died in a car accident). Sunny’s walking home with Miles and Folake Musa, her Nigerian American best friend, when the kids notice a police car outside the Williams’ apartment building. They overhear an officer telling a concerned neighbor that Nanna is being taken to a nursing home following a wellness check. Surprisingly, an officer says that the grandchildren have been put in emergency foster care. Before the mix-up can be sorted out and social services show up, the siblings try to secretly live at school. Inspired by her favorite fantasy story, Sunny decides that to save Nanna, they must go on a quest, just like the book’s hero, Luna. When their hiding place is inevitably discovered, Sunny decides (based on a sign connected to the fantasy) that new music teacher Darrious Evens is supposed to help them—and Mr. Evens does ultimately agree to foster them. The siblings must navigate a new living experience while trying to complete their quest. Sunny is a funny and relatable character, and readers will identify with her gumption and loyalty. Quirky Miles and Folake add another layer of fun to this story, whose pacing and humor make for an enjoyable read.
A compelling look at familial support that comes from unexpected people and places. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780063251755
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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