A complex and entertaining look at AI and human relationships.
A 12-year-old’s plan to get adopted is made more complicated by his school’s partnership with an artificial intelligence device.
Malcolm Montgomery, a Black boy whose parents were killed in a car crash, is a seasoned foster kid. He keeps a list of ways to be a perfect kid so he can meet his deadline of being adopted by his 13th birthday. Malcolm’s latest foster mom, Mrs. Bettye, might be grumpy, but she treats him better than the adults at his nine other foster placements did. Still, he’s careful not to view her place as home. Because of pervasive low scores on the required Colorado state assessment test, the principal at Shirley Chisholm Charter Middle School is forced to allow AI tech company Hatch-ED’s robot, the Forensically Reimagined Anticipatory Nano-Cerebral Integrated System, or FRANCIS, to teach the kids. Malcolm volunteers to work with social outcast Tank Grint, who’s white, to haul the AI around school on a cart. FRANCIS claims it can help Malcolm with his search for answers about why some kids get adopted—if it can access Malcolm’s school laptop. FRANCIS soon goes rogue, jeopardizing Malcolm’s relationship with Mrs. Bettye and landing him in hot water at school. One highlight of this poignant and humorous story is the organic friendship that develops between Malcolm and Tank. The depictions of foster care and adoption are also nuanced and realistic, and FRANCIS has sentient, humanizing characteristics that are thought-provoking.
A complex and entertaining look at AI and human relationships. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781646145089
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways.
Devotion permeates this tale of a small dog who’s swept up in a peasants’ revolt against a greedy king.
Inflamed with righteousness in the wake of yet another tax hike, 12-year-old Tom has defied his parents to slip away and join the revolutionary Reds. Stoutly declaring that he’s a good dog, 5-year-old Rebel chases after him to bring his beloved boy back—and discovers a wide new world beyond the farm, fraught with dangers but also rich in animal friends offering help and advice. Just as beguiling as the furry narrator’s dog’s-eye view of events are his ongoing arguments with Jaxon, a gruff feral hound he meets along the way, who urges him to find his wild inner True Dog. Jaxon’s refusal to be bound by emotional attachments ultimately clashes with Rebel’s big, uncomplicated heart. Following a brush with death, Rebel encounters a mystical Companion, who offers him glimpses of dog heaven; when the climactic battle arrives, Rebel declares, “I get to decide what I do with my one and only life. And if I use it for anything, I’m going to use it for love.” The author brings the odyssey to a satisfactory conclusion with one last, pure affirmation of love. In this story set in an alternate Britain reminiscent of its 17th-century Civil War, Rebel distinguishes humans in the cast by their voices, smell, and dress.
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781536246797
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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