Compassionately told, this compelling debut brings to life conservation issues and choices young readers will confront as...
While Addie’s close-knit family and rural Vermont community grieve her twin’s accidental drowning in Maple Lake last winter, only Addie knows why Amos ventured onto the ice that night.
Addie, a future aquatic biologist, scoffed when Amos insisted a large creature lived in the lake. Joining a scientific team investigating Maple Lake for the summer allows her to revisit what she regrets dismissing. Her parents and extended family cherish the pristine lake too, but Addie’s eagerness to explore it troubles them and limits the time she can devote to raising a 4-H calf with her cousin, Liza. (Their fathers grew up on the dairy farm Liza’s family runs). All are reluctant to believe Maple Lake’s in trouble, but there’s no denying the evidence Addie produces with the Chinese American lead scientist’s son, Tai. Also 12, Tai’s a likable city kid who reminds her of Amos. Addie shares her brother’s theory with Tai, and this—with the water samples they’ve collected—points to an unexpected source for the lake’s problems. Tai shares her concern; he’s seen pollution’s impact when in China. Addie’s close-knit, homogenous (presumably white) community wants to blame superstore construction and overdevelopment for the pollution, but not all problems come from outside. Baughman convincingly portrays the varied reactions to the findings as well as everybody’s desire for the lake to thrive. Without a villain to blame or superhero offering easy solutions, the book offers appealing characters whose opposing interests embody what’s at stake.
Compassionately told, this compelling debut brings to life conservation issues and choices young readers will confront as adults . (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-42242-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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