Movingly highlights a generation of youth at the center of progressive change.
The Alwan family arrives in Tampa, Florida, in 2017 after the war in Syria destroys their lives in Aleppo and forces them into a crowded refugee camp in Turkey.
But their arrival coincides with Trump’s Muslim ban and a sharp rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate crimes across the county, including in Tampa, where a mosque is set on fire soon after the family settles in. Frustrated and afraid yet determined to make the best of it, Noura begins seventh grade in her new American school. But she and her twin brother soon realize not all the students are like Jordyn, Noura’s kind, supportive school ambassador who becomes a good friend. Some are like Nick, who calls immigrants terrorists and draws a cartoon of Noura’s hijab being ripped off. But Noura insists on being strong and pushing forward by overcoming her worst fears and inspiring those around her to stand up for their values; she believes that hate can only be overcome with unity, conviction, and compassion. The novel seamlessly transitions between the perspectives of Noura and Jordyn, who is a White, upper-middle-class champion swimmer learning to cope with anxiety after her mother’s recent miscarriage. The girls quickly realize they share a lot in common and can help one another overcome their fears: Noura’s of swimming and Jordyn’s of panic attacks.
Movingly highlights a generation of youth at the center of progressive change. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-61766-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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