A magically charming debut.
Starting over in Massachusetts is a challenge for Louisiana transplant Feliciana Fruge.
Feliciana, a Cajun girl from the bayous of Terrebonne Parish, is struggling to adjust to her new life. When her mom and stepdad, Bob, got married, the family left the South for Bob’s hometown of Boston. Feliciana doesn’t like anything about the place. It’s cold, the food is bland, and ever since she moved here last year, she’s been bullied and made to feel self-conscious for being and sounding different. Starting sixth grade at a new school, Feliciana hopes to keep her Southern origins to herself. There’s only one problem: On her first day at Revere Academy, a wolflike creature from Cajun legend shows up, watching her with glowing yellow eyes. It turns out that Grandma knows a thing or two about this rougarou. Juggling excitable Roux with a city-wide art competition makes Feliciana more homesick than ever. But she discovers there’s more to the rougarou—and Boston—than she ever expected. Marsh tackles bullying, alienation, and displacement through the powerful lenses of myth and legend. Feliciana’s journey to accept her new home and herself creates a compelling, moving character arc that acknowledges how hard it is to be uprooted from one’s home while also learning to find joy in a new place.
A magically charming debut. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780063325388
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
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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