A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise.
Hackathon participation is jeopardized by a scheduling conflict.
Latina sixth-grader Sophia Torres is excited about her first hackathon: an all-day coding event with prizes. Each team receives components and modules to build a robot to attempt a maze, so the girls from The Friendship Code (2017) talk algorithms and pseudocode to plan out how they’ll make their Rockin’ Robots entry stand out. Sophia hopes her busy mother will be able to come support her, but instead her parents drop a bombshell: the night before the hackathon registration deadline, they tell her that she must miss it to babysit her sisters (an 8-year-old on the autism spectrum, a 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old). The hackathon has a strict, plot-determined rule: if any registered participant can’t attend, the whole team must withdraw. Sophia gambles her team’s eligibility on her ability to convince her babysitter-averse parents to compromise. After blaming Sophia (saying she should have told the team sooner), they tease her with the possibility of a babysitter: her father gives her an extensive list of chores she must complete for him to “consider” letting her go. Once the team learns, they surprise Sophia by helping her complete her domestic duties and arranging for the babysitter so she can participate. Evidently the moral’s about asking for help; regressive ideas and plot-driven, questionable parenting are never addressed. The diverse cast also includes white, black, and Asian teammates as well as a new-to-the-team girl from Pakistan (who, curiously, gives their robot an Arabic name rather than, say, an Urdu one) and a dark-skinned boy Sophia has an age-appropriate crush on.
A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54252-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
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