Bumpy in spots, but on the whole, a relatable tale of friendship and self-discovery.
When the bus she’s been living in with her dad and yoga-influencer mom breaks down after two years on the road, 10-year-old Lindy longs to set down roots in San Jose.
Lindy and her family started their travel adventure after her dad quit his job as a software engineer to avoid “melting down faster than a computer with no fan.” Her mom is “trying to life-coach through lifestyle,” generating content as she poses in front of scenic vistas in national parks and curating flawless images of their #lifeontheroad for Instagram. But life isn’t picture-perfect; Lindy’s frustrated with the way her parents, especially her mom, seem more interested in how things look than how she feels: “Sometimes it feels like those invisible people are more important to her than anything else. Including me.” When new friends Dasha and May introduce her to skateboarding, Lindy finally feels like she’s found something just for her. With lined pages, a loose handwriting-style font, and sketches throughout, the book’s design mimics a journal, immersing readers in Lindy’s struggles. Though Lindy’s voice is a bit inconsistent—at times she feels alternately older and younger—overall, it rings true; her frustrations and triumphs will resonate with young people. Physical descriptors are minimal. Final art not seen.
Bumpy in spots, but on the whole, a relatable tale of friendship and self-discovery. (map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780593707814
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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