Well-meaning but a miss.
After observing the roosters in his artist grandpa’s backyard, seventh-grader Joe López can’t get enough of these indomitable avians.
His sketchbook is filled with them, and soon his art teacher encourages him to enter one of his pieces in the county fair, but he is distracted by a girl from his past, Kiki, and the school bully. Kiki supports his creativity and backs him up when he decides to emulate the courage of a rooster and finally confront Martín. Things take a turn for the worse, however, as his nemesis swears revenge on Joe for foiling a lunch-money shakedown. Grandpa Jessie teaches Joe about the power of standing his ground, and when the students unite against their tormentor, he runs away and everyone cheers for “Rooster Joe.” Garza’s bold, black-and-white illustrations reflect the age level of both the protagonists and the target audience—preteen Latino boys. This bilingual chapter book (organized into English and Spanish halves) aspires to be inspirational and empowering, but it comes across as plodding and didactic. The voice vacillates between middle schooler and adult: “there are rules in middle school and what [Gary] is suggesting is just plain taboo. A seventh grade boy has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting an eighth-grader to be his girlfriend.” In addition, Joe’s narration is constantly sidelined by hard-to-chew chunks of preachy exposition. The story lacks focus, and the message’s delivery is heavy-handed. Garza’s Maximillian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel is a far superior effort.
Well-meaning but a miss. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55885-835-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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