An unusually nuanced exploration of bullying; as perceptive as it is entertaining.
The summer following the events of The Lemonade War (2007) is one of literal as well as figurative bridge building for sibs Evan and Jessie.
Prickly 9-year-old Jessie is initially disgusted, as instead of being enrolled in a summer camp for young engineers, she’s relegated to “How to Make and Decorate Fairy Houses”—worse yet, she joins a trio of mean third grade girls led by nemesis Becky. For easygoing fifth grader Evan, it’s summer school, where he’s not only singled out for remedial tutoring, but has accidentally been placed with older middle schoolers with an established pecking order and Reed, a vicious bully, at the top. Unsurprisingly, in short order Jessie has hijacked her class, efficiently leaving Becky on the outside but leading everyone else in a seminar on bridge design and construction (learning along the way to tolerate the occasional toy troll or other nonscientific embellishment). Evan has a harder time as he battles powerful twin urges to stand with classmate Stevie, Reed’s favorite victim, or stand by to fit into the established social order. Making the better, if perhaps not safer, choice leads to a climactic brush with disaster…but with some timely help from a surprising source, Reed is ultimately sent packing in a satisfactory way. As before, it’s the interplay between Jessie’s fierce intellect and Evan’s emotional intelligence that resolves issues and boosts this series from good to great. Characters read White.
An unusually nuanced exploration of bullying; as perceptive as it is entertaining. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-69299-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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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