Readers will be caught up as the lens through which this likable protagonist sees her world expands.
Every year one person in Glimmer Creek survives great danger, after which they seem to acquire subtle magical abilities.
Spurred in large part by a longing to impress the actor father she’s never met, right now filming only two hours away, 12-year-old budding film director Rosie Flynn is determined to make a documentary about her town’s Miracles and premiere it at its Festival of the Fish. Solving the 100-year-old mystery of what causes them would prove she has real talent as a filmmaker. But Rosie, who has secretly invited her father to the showing, has only 17 days to make the movie! She enlists her two best friends, Henry and Cam (all together they are HenRoCam), to help. These three have always been there for one another, but everything seems to be different once they start seventh grade. Hackney authentically covers a lot of middle school ground in this well-crafted debut. Rosie grapples with changing friendships, worries that she and her mother no longer seem “snapped together like the two halves of Mama’s locket,” and even questions if the Miracles are real. By turns gripping and suspenseful, especially when Henry goes missing, and also emotionally insightful, the story weaves together small-town lore (a 100-year-old skeleton, lost treasure) with a strong sense of community in which love, kindness, and faith quietly emerge. Most characters seem white; Cam has light-brown skin.
Readers will be caught up as the lens through which this likable protagonist sees her world expands. (recipes) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4484-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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
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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