A compassionate, feel-good story affording readers opportunities for identification, information, and inspiration.
A contemporary, character-driven, coming-of-age story about a queer tween and their crush.
Nonbinary Green Gibson is active in Jung Middle School’s Rainbow Spectrum affinity group and is looking forward to auditioning for their school’s revamped production of The Wizard of Oz, in which actors get to choose the genders of their roles. Green isn’t cast in the play, but their disappointment turns to curiosity when their crush, Ronnie, signs up to help behind the scenes. When Green joins the stage crew as well, Ronnie—who is white, has two moms, and describes himself as a “cis het guy”—keeps signaling his interest, and Green can’t stop thinking about Ronnie. This situation leads Green, who’s also dealing with looming questions related to the onset of puberty, to interrogate everything and embrace complexity and ambiguity. Filled with age-relevant experiences and deeper, more introspective reflections on bodily autonomy, identity, and internalized oppression, the plot stays laser-focused on Green and their close-knit, caring, and wise intergenerational sphere. Information-packed dialogue that at times feels a bit forced embeds history and possibility into the upbeat and affirming narrative, educating readers about topics such as gender theorist Judith Butler and the term friend of Dorothy. Readers familiar with Gino’s Melissa (2015) and Rick (2020) will recognize the setting as well as some of the characters and occasional nods to their backstories. Green is cued white; the school community is broadly diverse.
A compassionate, feel-good story affording readers opportunities for identification, information, and inspiration. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781338776140
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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