A surprisingly funny look at a subject readers may think is anything but.
Kasey Morgan is 12 and has received the worst possible news.
She has found out that she has a bacterial infection in her bones and will have to stay in the hospital for an entire month over, wait for it, summer vacation! On top of that, she is the only child staying in the geriatric ward, which is full of scary old people, and she’s permanently attached to her IV unit, which she dubs Ivy, “which is prettier and friendlier.” Slowly, Kasey’s perspective on her fellow patients changes as she becomes accustomed to their quirks and even befriends 94-year-old Missy Wong, the unit’s oldest patient. The book is written in the form of letters to her friend in the outside world, Nina. Kasey’s observational humor and snarky attitude will have readers chuckling. Hughes (Hit the Ground Running, 2017, etc.) reveals in her acknowledgments that she spent a month in a hospital as a child, and she translates that effortlessly for readers, communicating Kasey’s fear and vulnerability as well as that sense that she must put on a brave front for the sake of the adults around her. While only Kasey really comes to life in three dimensions, and the possibly Chinese Missy Wong is the only nonwhite character, the book nevertheless effectively explains geriatric illness for an audience that has probably never considered it, and the glimpses of the lives of older people that generate empathy in Kasey may do so for readers as well.
A surprisingly funny look at a subject readers may think is anything but. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1574-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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