A slowly unfurling delight.
A missing painting, a floating girl, and a mustachioed man: a lonely almost-12-year-old vows to figure it all out.
Middle school has been terrible for Rami Ahmed, and now a painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, where his mother works as the cleaning crew supervisor. Only the cleaning crew, Ed the security guard, and Rami himself were in the building on the day of the painting’s disappearance. As the theft draws unprecedented interest in the small, largely overlooked museum, the pressure of suspicion starts to grow. When a mysterious girl appears to Rami in the museum—and he recognizes her as the girl who’s portrayed in the stolen painting—he’s certain that she holds the key to its whereabouts. After Rami joins forces with Indian American classmate Veda, an aspiring sleuth, he finds himself in increasingly unexpected situations. The mystery drives this exquisitely paced story that unfolds in short chapters that readers will quickly consume. The characters, though, are the beating heart of this tender, quiet tale. From Rami, the only child of a now-single immigrant mother from Lebanon, to the museum director, who “had that accent that most rich people do…fancy and well educated,” to Agatha, the sun-seeking turtle from the garden by the Penelope who observes, learns, and wants to give joy—each character is drawn with texture, depth, and warmth. Rockefeller’s evocative illustrations enhance the text.
A slowly unfurling delight. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780062956705
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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
An insubstantial story that offers a prosocial message.
Two boys equally blessed with both talent and ego vie for supremacy in their school’s annual “creative storytelling competition.”
J is “by far the best artist in the entire fifth grade”; K has “become known as the best writer in the entire fifth grade.” Naturally, each one is determined to crush it in The Contest, and each decides an illustrated story is the way to go. The competitive boys try to undermine one another by passing along fake tips for success, each hoping to destroy his opponent’s story. K advises J to “write what you DON’T know” and to use sixth-person narration. “J’s Secrets to Drawing Really Good” are just as catastrophic and include drawing with your nondominant hand and inserting mistakes to keep readers engaged. Creative hijinks ensue. Craft and Alexander have become known on social media for the jocular trash talk they heap on each other; J and K are their fictional child avatars. As an internet bit doled out in small doses, their frenemy-ship is amusing; as a sustained story about storytelling, it’s thin on both character and plot development. Authorial interjections exhort readers to look up 75-cent vocabulary, often used in barbs directed at each other; the latter feel like in-jokes more than playful attempts to engage young readers. Kids may enjoy spotting references to popular children’s authors among the characters’ names, and budding authors and illustrators will benefit from the advice. J and K are both Black; their classmates and teachers are racially diverse.
An insubstantial story that offers a prosocial message. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780316582681
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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