For baseball lovers, it’s a winner.
Matt loves everything about baseball.
He is an excellent player on his Little League team in the summer All-Stars League. It doesn’t matter that he’s the shortest kid on the team, because baseball makes him feel “like his very best self.” He studies every aspect of the game and takes extra practices with his teammate José. His mom is his special personal coach, enthusiastically practicing hitting and fielding with him, always encouraging, not just about baseball, but also about his severe stutter. His speech pathologist is another support, eliciting his feelings when he is “blocked” or “stuck” and finding ways to help. Ben, another teammate, is having his own difficulties. He hits towering homers but strikes out more often. His father insists on a big swing and yells loudly at him to hit home runs. Matt and his mom try to coach him in ways to get more base hits, but his dad proves to be a negative force. Lupica keeps the focus on Matt’s struggles, his determination, and his genuine kindness, braiding it with action-packed play-by-play baseball and lots of references to current major league players. José is Puerto Rican, and there’s delightful Spanish-English wordplay in their banter. Matt and most of the other characters present white, though there are naming conventions that indicate some diversity.
For baseball lovers, it’s a winner. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2155-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A warm bundle of holiday cheer.
In a funny, feel-good tale, 12-year-old twins separated at birth meet by chance and try to pull off a family switch during the December holidays.
The girls, who are cued white, agree that it would be a delicious prank, but each has a personal motive, too: Aviva Davis, who was adopted by a culturally Jewish mom and a Black dad who was raised Christian, wonders what it’s like to celebrate Christmas. Budding author Holly Martin, who was adopted by a white-presenting single mom, sees a golden opportunity to gather experiences for a school writing assignment about facing her fears. In a plot as sweet as a Hanukkah jelly doughnut and twisty as a Christmas cinnamon roll, the pair just manages to bail one another out of a string of sticky situations—both hilarious and otherwise. They both learn something of the customs and meaning of the two holidays while working through tears and laughter—not to mention conflicts sparked by their very different personalities. Everything culminates in a holiday performance at a local senior center that will have readers rising up to cheer them on. Though their history remains tantalizingly mysterious, for the protagonists, who narrate alternating chapters, it’s mission accomplished and more: Aviva emerges feeling more secure in her Jewish identity, while anxious Holly discovers unexpected depths of courage.
A warm bundle of holiday cheer. (song lyrics) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250360670
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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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