An uphill trek.
How do you solve a mystery involving stolen artwork? Sometimes you need to make all the right mistakes.
Stephen is a seventh-grader who follows his father’s philosophy that making mistakes can be a good thing; a mistake implies you’ve tried something new and you’re pushing yourself to accept new challenges in life. One of these challenges may be starting a friendship with a girl. Renée is very different from Steven—she loves bright colors and has a dramatic flair that makes people notice her. The two kids (both evidently white) are a mismatched pair, much like the dog duo of hyperactive Ping (a Jack Russell) and quiet Pong (a greyhound) that Stephen walks for his father’s dog-walking business. While out walking the dogs, Stephen and Renée begin to notice odd occurrences: public artwork in their neighborhood is disappearing. When Renée’s graffiti-artist brother falls under suspicion, it’s up to Stephen and Renée to prove his innocence. Although the premise is interesting, drowsy pacing and unnatural dialogue slow the plot to a putter. Loud and vibrant Renée is written as a brash one-note character, while quiet Stephen is inconsistent, both dubious about having a girl as a friend and happy to knit the night away. The matter-of-fact introduction of Stephen’s caregiving father and globe-trotting mother is pleasingly refreshing, but it doesn’t save the story’s humdrum narrative. Mystery lovers may find more excitement in Chasing Vermeer or When You Reach Me.
An uphill trek. (Mystery. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4597-3880-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Dundurn
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist.
This is the way Pearl’s world ends: not with a bang but with a scream.
Pearl Moran was born in the Lancaster Avenue branch library and considers it more her home than the apartment she shares with her mother, the circulation librarian. When the head of the library’s beloved statue of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is found to be missing, Pearl’s scream brings the entire neighborhood running. Thus ensues an enchanting plunge into the underbelly of a failing library and a city brimful of secrets. With the help of friends old, uncertainly developing, and new, Pearl must spin story after compelling story in hopes of saving what she loves most. Indeed, that love—of libraries, of books, and most of all of stories—suffuses the entire narrative. Literary references are peppered throughout (clarified with somewhat superfluous footnotes) in addition to a variety of tangential sidebars (the identity of whose writer becomes delightfully clear later on). Pearl is an odd but genuine narrator, possessed of a complex and emotional inner voice warring with a stridently stubborn outer one. An array of endearing supporting characters, coupled with a plot both grounded in stressful reality and uplifted by urban fantasy, lend the story its charm. Both the neighborhood and the library staff are robustly diverse. Pearl herself is biracial; her “long-gone father” was black and her mother is white. Bagley’s spot illustrations both reinforce this and add gentle humor.
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist. (reading list) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6952-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Less charming than the opener but does feature a thimbleful of moral quandary at its center.
Armed only with her magical sewing needle, foundling mouse Delphine sets out to confront the cruel rat king in this duology closer.
As vicious rat armies pillage the mouse realms in search of her and her pointy, long-hidden treasure, Delphine finds herself waging an inner war that parallels the outer one. According to dusty documents and other reputable sources, the needle’s good powers can be perverted, but she sees no other way except killing to stop evil rat King Midnight. While struggling with a grim determination to go over to the dark side that sets her at odds with her own fundamentally loving nature, Delphine threads her way along with loyal allies past various scrapes—only to come, climactically, face to face with not only her nemesis, but her own past. Moon stitches in flashbacks to fill out the details of a tragic old love triangle that reaches its fruition here and sews her tale up with a return to Château Desjardins just in time for Cinderella’s wedding and a celebratory rodentine ball in the chandelier overhead, and she leaves a fringe of epilogue hinting at further installments to come.
Less charming than the opener but does feature a thimbleful of moral quandary at its center. (secret codes) (Animal fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-04833-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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