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ANNA, BANANA, AND THE FRIENDSHIP SPLIT

From the Anna, Banana series , Vol. 1

A realistic story for sensitive kids.

Jealousy threatens to tear best friends apart.

The story opens with best friends Anna and Sadie celebrating Anna’s birthday with her family. While all is well at first, Sadie’s behavior gets stranger and stranger—starting with general bossiness and escalating into a demand to wear Anna’s special birthday necklace before claiming it as her own. Empathetic Anna doesn’t understand why Sadie is so angry that she’s acting out, reflecting, “Even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d done wrong, I could still apologize, since I definitely was sorry that Sadie was mad.” There’s a surprising amount of tension as Anna struggles with her bafflement, narrated in an emotionally sensitive first-person voice. Anna’s parents eventually help their daughter understand that despite spoiled Sadie’s outward enjoyment of her divorced parents’ laxity and indulgence, Sadie is actually jealous of Anna’s close-knit family. Fairly realistically, the girls resolve their problems not through words but through actions—an exchange of kind gestures reconciles the friends. Children may wonder why Anna’s dog, Banana, gets such prominent billing, as although he is her boon companion, he does not figure much in the plot.

A realistic story for sensitive kids. (Fiction. 6-10)

Pub Date: May 5, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4814-1605-4

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015

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BEATRICE ZINKER, UPSIDE DOWN THINKER

From the Beatrice Zinker, Upside Down Thinker series , Vol. 1

A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.

Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.

Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.

A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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