A passionate novel uplifting young activists.
Eager to address climate change, Connecticut eighth graders also confront economic inequality, racism, and politics.
Bearsville Climate Club is an innovative pilot program: Its students will study climate science and develop community-based initiatives to address environmental concerns. Observant young naturalist Mary Kate Murphy applied along with her bat-loving BFF, Lucy Perlman (both are White), but Lucy is now kept home by a mysterious illness. Initially lost by herself, Mary Kate warms to Mr. Lu, the club’s charismatic Chinese American teacher, who pairs her with composting enthusiast Shawn Hill, a Black student who commutes from Hartford to their better-resourced suburban school. As the students explore their priorities—for example, growing hemp, eliminating leaf blowers, addressing disposable fashion, ending meat consumption—they also learn about and discuss racism’s toxic legacy in their towns and families. Mary Kate is chagrined to learn that wealthier, predominantly White communities, including hers, outsource their trash to the incinerator polluting Shawn’s neighborhood. When the longtime mayor makes Shawn’s out-of-district address an excuse to invalidate the club’s application for a community grant, the students take action, which proves an energizing antidote to feeling helpless about the future. Fast-paced and often funny, this stand-alone companion to Dress Coded (2020) has a similar mosaic structure. Podcast transcripts, checklists, school assignments, and short vignettes showcase Firestone’s gift for illustrating how apparently unrelated issues intersect—or collide—while realistically portraying the voices of middle schoolers.
A passionate novel uplifting young activists. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984816-46-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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