A flawed debut—but a promising one.
Abby, a, rural Wisconsin preteen with a passion for astronomy, concocts a secret plan to help her sister Blair, 18, who suffers from a life-threatening eating disorder.
Middle sister Jade, 16, is preoccupied with friends and a summer job; Blair’s in residential treatment while their parents ready the family’s rustic resort to host media and sightseers for the forthcoming solar eclipse. Isolated, Abby, whose besties have inexplicably dropped her, attracts the interest of renowned astronomer Leo Lacamoire, a visitor who recruits her to dig up a time capsule containing a valuable telescope stolen from him. Abby agrees, provided Leo promises to introduce her to his editor, who Abby hopes will publish Planet Pirates, a collection of stories she’s written and Blair’s illustrated. Despite long-laid plans to view the eclipse with her astronomy-teacher dad, Abby realizes her only chance to dig up the time capsule unobserved is during the event. Into this plot vignettes from the past are interwoven in reverse chronology, a technique that brings Blair’s story—the novel’s strength—into heartbreaking relief. A perfectionist whose ballet hopes were stoked and manipulated by a ruthless teacher, appealing Blair is entirely convincing. But the plot’s unlikely resolution rests on secondary characters’ implausible, sketchy motivations—not those of the sisters readers care about. The subplot involving Abby, Leo, and the time capsule not only fails to persuade, it undermines what does. Abby’s family and Leo all present white.
A flawed debut—but a promising one. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291267-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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