Middle-grade readers will find much to think about in this beautifully written story.
A struggling family in rural Michigan finds that fracking for natural gas can be positive and negative.
In this moving story, ably told through the eyes of an 11-year-old “born naturalist,” Helget weaves themes of poverty, parenting, appreciation for the natural world, and forgiveness through a balanced presentation of the complicated contemporary issue of energy supplies. Life has not been easy for Fern, a white girl who is sore-pressed to keep her family—stepfather Toivo and two younger brothers—together. Her mother and a third brother were killed in an auto accident two years earlier. Wounded physically and emotionally by his service in Iraq, Toivo loves his children deeply but has had trouble finding and keeping work in a diminishing economy. Fern forages and Toivo hunts in the old-growth forest behind their home, the forest where Kloche’s Hydraulic Fracturing wants to put a wastewater pond. Worse, Fern’s grandfather supports the fracking; his company will sell Kloche’s lots of piping. He’s also demanding custody of the children. Fern’s first-person voice is completely convincing. Her vocabulary and phrasing is rural Midwestern, and her imagery comes from the natural world she loves. The sense of place is palpable. The author demonstrates the poverty of Fern’s family and friends (including a Muslim family from Somalia) with telling detail, and the tension and action arise naturally. Though occasional small details may pull readers out of the narrative, this nuanced take on a pressing issue is an important one.
Middle-grade readers will find much to think about in this beautifully written story. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-24511-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
Fiercely feisty and unapologetically goofy.
Three young girls are tasked with saving their town from a vicious worm.
This romp from actor McKinnon introduces the three Porch girls: Gertrude, age 12 and three-quarters, Eugenia, age 12 and one-eighth, and Dee-Dee, age 11. Cared for by Aunt Desdemona and Uncle Ansel (along with their seven cousins, who are all named Lavinia), they’re forced to live in a ramshackle shed at the edge of the property. In a classic turn of events, the sisters are invited to a new school run by a certain Millicent Quibb. Under Quibb’s eccentric tutelage, the trio learn that the nefarious Krenetics Research Association, hoping to release their founder, Talon Sharktūth, from his vault, has bred a Kyrgalops, a vicious stone- and puppy-chomping worm, which may destroy their entire town. McKinnon’s middle-grade debut is grandiosely silly, reminiscent of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events in both its sesquipedalian language and tone and in relying heavily on its bespoke lexicon, verbal gymnastics, and cheeky footnotes to deliver jokes. Interspersed throughout are bits of visual interest—poems and songs, schematics, and bits of correspondence. Though the action rockets along at a Pixy Stix–fueled pace, many questions are left unanswered or unaddressed, making this series opener exposition heavy and a bit frustrating. Still, readers will ultimately be left hopeful that subsequent volumes will offer something meatier. The illustrations cue some diversity of skin tone among the characters.
Fiercely feisty and unapologetically goofy. (map, afterword, appendices) (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780316554732
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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