An introspective, sensitive tale that readers can grow along with.
In this novel told in free verse, Beatrice Miller is on the verge of 13 and trying to figure out who she will become.
During the summer before seventh grade, Beatrice is at the boundary between childhood and something else. She’s happy with her small family—eccentric and free-spirited grandmother Mamaw and more conventional workaholic Mom—and best friends—dreamy, artsy Mariella and strong, fearless StaceyAnn. But she also longs to grow into a beautiful and mature member of the popular clique. Rather than stemming from any overarching external conflict, the narrative tension emerges from Beatrice’s conflicted inner world, illustrated right off the bat through her being torn between love of her Kentucky country town (painted especially lovingly through descriptions of meals and a garden motif) and shame at being thought a hillbilly and for her socio-economic status. Every now and then Beatrice dips into territory so overly generalized as to feel clichéd (standard-issue gym-class angst and undersupervised spin-the-bottle parties), but the strong female bonds and varied characterizations elevate Beatrice’s struggles against gender expectations, whether in the form of beauty rules or teachers’ privileging boys, as she tries to find her own voice. Beatrice and her family are White; Mariella is Mexican American, and StaceyAnn has a Black father and White mother. One character comes out in a scene that highlights casual acceptance without denigrating the moment’s importance to the character.
An introspective, sensitive tale that readers can grow along with. (Verse novel. 8-13)Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0460-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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