With careful guidance, a potentially useful resource.
Originally published in Italy, this DIY adventure book features 50 activities, one per chapter, as a sort of bucket list of challenges for a pre–14-year-old.
Each chapter introduces a new adventure and accompanying instructions. The adventures don’t seem to be in any particular order, and many of the activities presented are to be had outdoors. Each chapter ends with a “Mission Accomplished” template that is to be completed with details summarizing the adventure. Many activities presented are dubious or even exclusionary, starting with the adventure that instructs kids to sleep in a scary place that must be “really special and dangerous,” like “a nearby forest.” Adventure No. 20 suggests photographing three wild animals (a deer, a bear, and a fox pose in Ferrari’s illustration), while another, searching for mushrooms, mentions that many are edible but not that any are lethal. There are even instructions on stalking a fellow human, illustrated by a picture of a girl who is being followed by a hidden stalker. Still, many activities are kid-friendly, and the book can act as a handy anti-boredom tool. Although the book is definitely geared toward young people who have ready access to substantial swaths of outdoors, some, such as baking bread or writing a story or letter, should be accessible to most children.
With careful guidance, a potentially useful resource. (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7155-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A rich and deeply felt slice of life.
Crafting fantasy worlds offers a budding middle school author relief and distraction from the real one in this graphic memoir debut.
Everyone in Tori’s life shows realistic mixes of vulnerability and self-knowledge while, equally realistically, seeming to be making it up as they go. At least, as she shuttles between angrily divorced parents—dad becoming steadily harder to reach, overstressed mom spectacularly incapable of reading her offspring—or drifts through one wearingly dull class after another, she has both vivacious bestie Taylor Lee and, promisingly, new classmate Nick as well as the (all-girl) heroic fantasy, complete with portals, crystal amulets, and evil enchantments, taking shape in her mind and on paper. The flow of school projects, sleepovers, heart-to-heart conversations with Taylor, and like incidents (including a scene involving Tori’s older brother, who is having a rough adolescence, that could be seen as domestic violence) turns to a tide of change as eighth grade winds down and brings unwelcome revelations about friends. At least the story remains as solace and, at the close, a sense that there are still chapters to come in both worlds. Working in a simple, expressive cartoon style reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier’s, Sharp captures facial and body language with easy naturalism. Most people in the spacious, tidily arranged panels are White; Taylor appears East Asian, and there is diversity in background characters.
A rich and deeply felt slice of life. (afterword, design notes) (Graphic memoir. 10-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53889-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
This will appeal to fans of Alexander’s previous middle-grade novels as well as young sports fans.
Building on the great success of his Newbery-winning The Crossover (2014), Alexander provides advice and life lessons to young readers, drawn mostly from the world of sports and organized by a schema of “rules.”
Instead of chapters, the work begins with a preface called “Warm-up: The Rules” and is then divided into the four quarters of a game, each having a theme: “grit,” “motivation,” “focus,” and “teamwork and resilience.” “Passion” is included as a half-time consideration, and there is an “overtime” look at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There are brief profiles of athletes Wilma Rudolph, LeBron James, Pelé, and Venus and Serena Williams, along with maxims and personal anecdotes from both male and female sports figures who’ve excelled in different arenas as well as a few nonathletes, including Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Sonya Sotomayor, and Nelson Mandela. Throughout there is poetry, verses that remind us why Alexander connects with readers. “Rule #45 / A loss is inevitable / like rain in spring. / True champions / learn / to dance / through / the storm.” The advice never feels heavy-handed, and the author's voice shines through. The design is as much a part of the book as its lively text, set in varying font sizes and colors (black, white, or orange), differing layouts, and judicious use of photographs and illustrations.
This will appeal to fans of Alexander’s previous middle-grade novels as well as young sports fans. (Nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-57097-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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