Passable but flawed.
This slice-of-life Canadian import is more than just another “I want to get a pet” tale.
Nine-year-old Jeannie was promised a hamster, but her father’s recent departure from the family has upset their routines. When she finally gets to the pet store and chooses a white hamster with blue eyes, she names it Harvey Owens, after her father. Meanwhile, Sapphire the hamster just wants to be free. She (yes, unbeknownst to Jeannie, Harvey/Sapphire is a female) escapes several times, but freedom is never what she thinks it will be. With Dad gone, new family friend Anna Conda steps in to help Jeannie’s mother out. A trans woman, Anna helps Jeannie to believe “you are who you are,” assisting Jeannie and her older brother with the background behind their parents’ separation: Their dad has fallen in love with another person, who happens to be a man. Sapphire and Jeannie narrate alternating chapters, and neither is completely aware of all that is going on around them. Sapphire, especially, reports dialogue and action she does not fully understand, adding an additional layer to this tale of understanding difference. Seen through Jeannie’s unquestioning gaze, Anna is a sympathetic, fairly rounded character, but she also comes across as a plot device. Additionally, she concedes to Jeannie’s desire to learn her pre-transition name—a missed opportunity to communicate to young readers this essential point of respect. Jeannie’s family and Anna present white. Sapphire's illustrated guide to hamster care adds a touch of fun.
Passable but flawed. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77278-069-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of unbridled, melodramatic tomfoolery will be over the moon.
A taste of poisoned soup spurs the Queen of the Moon and her feline companion into embarking on a quest for a curative fruit from the orbiting orb’s only golden glumpfoozle tree.
In further exploits attended by the monosyllabic, spacesuit-clad titular feline (“Meow”), Harris and Barnett bring back the cast of The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza (2022), from diaper-wearing buccaneer Captain Babybeard to computerized toenail clipper LOZ 4000, for a lunar ramble past a pair of mysterious killbots, Psychic Flying Eyeballs of Death, and other hazards. Depicted in rolling arrays of changing palettes and panel sizes and led by the opalescent Queen of the Moon—who, ignoring her loudly rumbling tummy, stoutly declares that “my reign will not be cut short by soup”—the expedition fetches up at last on the edge of a bottomless crater for a last-minute save, appropriately over-the-top grandstanding by a familiar AI with futile protagonistic ambitions (“How many pages did I get this time? 73?”), and a closing celebratory soupfest, depicted Last Supper–style by a vermiform da Vinci. This volume continues the nonstop madcap fun; returning readers will not be disappointed, and new ones will quickly become avid followers of the world’s first feline astronaut.
Fans of unbridled, melodramatic tomfoolery will be over the moon. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780063084117
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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