A wholesome but lightweight story of a girl navigating a new environment.
Ten-year-old Fernsnickle Hooves arrives at her new “Home-School-Away-from-Home” in Miami and makes new friends at camp in Depner’s follow-up to The Everyday Adventures of Fernsnickle Hooves (2021).
Mrs. Peabody, the owner of the academy known as Oasis, gives newcomer Fernsnickle a tour of her sprawling new home and school after the girl arrives by train. Over cucumber and watercress sandwiches, Mrs. Peabody reveals that Fernsnickle’s recently deceased Grandma Rose was a domestic servant for the Peabodys after dropping out of school at age 16. (Whenever Fernsnickle is surprised at some good fortune, she remembers Grandma Rose, who used to say “you just NEVER know!”) The next morning, Fernsnickle meets fellow student Alison Peabody, who’s distantly related to Mrs. Peabody, and Capt. Whit, who takes the girls by boat to an island called Camp Colorado, located just off the Florida Keys. She gets annoyed by Alison’s quirks, and they inspire a deeply flawed idea for an entry in the Science Fiction Science Fair, which rewards imagination more than scientific know-how. Fernsnickle finds that the girls’ education is focused on studying their interests, creative projects, reading, and field trips. She starts the Girls Working Together for a Better World Club with her new friends, and they all enter a Talent Show, which sets up the third book in the series. Over the course of the book, Depner is adept at weaving in discussions of social issues; for example, Fernsnickle is quite forthright on educating others on the downsides of smoking, and there’s even a brief financial literacy lesson on saving and investing. She also visits shelters for people without homes, but the book might have been improved by more detailed and emotional observations about those living there. Overall, the book is fun and fast-paced. However, despite its complex plot, it suffers from a general lack of depth. The problems involving the Science Fiction Science Fair are resolved too quickly, for example, and aside from Alison, readers don’t really get to know any of the other girls at Oasis.
A wholesome but lightweight story of a girl navigating a new environment.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2022
ISBN: 979-8481318257
Page Count: 149
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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