Even away from camp, the Flowerpot campers blossom.
Now back at home, the girls of Flowerpot cabin find themselves yearning for the sweet friendships of Moonlight Ranch summer camp to help them through some rough patches.
Romance angst prompts Hannah, the white Flowerpot counselor, to bake cookies in hopes of soothing her broken heart. She also mails a box to mixed-race (Chinese and white) Grace, who desperately needs a little wisdom in the wake of a recent dogsitting fiasco. This prompts a whirlwind of cookie boxes and letters winging across the country. Whether it’s a box of strawberry-thumbprint cookies for white Emma, who’s dealing with the loss of her great-grandmother, or lemon cookies for African-American Olivia, trying to leverage her social media profile, each box arrives just at the right time. And even though white Lucy’s cinnamon cookies arrive underbaked, they are perfect for when her estranged father reappears on the scene. Freeman tackles issues such as honesty, depression, grief, and the pressures of the digital age with finesse. And while sugary treats are nice, friendship is the real salve. Separate sections allow each girl to tell her own story. And a quartet of included recipes invites readers to share their own “flour power.”
Even away from camp, the Flowerpot campers blossom. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4824-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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