Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up.
Aspiring scientist Hope Roberts is starting her first day at JFK Middle School, where her advanced classes will separate her from her best friend, Sam Bowers, for the first time.
Though the friends make a pact to keep close, different classes and extracurricular interests forge a distance. After surviving the first week of middle school, Hope joins the science club, which is given the immediate task of preparing for the year’s first science competition. Though Hope and her new friend, Camila Rivera, conceive the robotics coding idea for the competition project, the boys mostly dominate the actualization of the project. The girls express their frustration to each other, but they continue on as team players. Hope gets so caught up in trying to prove the boys wrong that her anxiety leads to the destruction of the entire project. Hope’s supportive parents offer her the insight she needs to face her mistakes and work through them. A diverse cast is depicted via illustrations and naming convention. Biracial (black/white) Hope is illustrated with brown skin and “big hair” (referred to multiple times, once in tandem with her dog). Sam has pale skin, and Camilla declares Guatemalan heritage. Hope fumbles by stereotyping Camilla as an assumed Spanish speaker; the authors arguably make the same gaffe by casting Señora Lopez, the Spanish teacher, with swaying hoop earrings.
Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-32940-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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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