Another radiant outing.
A home-centered sequel to Sunny Side Up (2015), with incidents joyful and otherwise in a middle schooler’s life.
The tale is set in the 1976-77 school year and framed by references to TV shows of that era (both contemporaneous and reruns, including The Six Million Dollar Man, The Brady Bunch, and Gilligan’s Island, with amusingly pithy show notes for each). The story unfolds in successive episodes of Sunny’s self-conceived The Sunny Show that confront her with domestic challenges ranging from little brother Teddy’s filled diaper (“Something Smells”) to the stormy holiday visit by formerly loving but now angry, troubled big brother Dale, come home from a military-style boarding school (“Six Million Dollar Boy”). Despite such low notes, though, the general trend is upbeat—with Gramps coming up from Florida for a visit, a sisterly, Indian-American teen neighbor named Neela Singh moving in next door (adding some diversity to the otherwise all-white main cast), and a heartening if long-distance thank-you from Dale for the pet rock Sunny gives him at Christmas being particular highlights. Using a combination of short exchanges of dialogue and frequent wordless reaction shots, the Holms again leverage simply drawn scenes colored by Pien into a loosely autobiographical narrative that is poignant and hilarious in turn and emotionally rich throughout.
Another radiant outing. (Graphic historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-74170-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal.
Despite poor first impressions, an aggressive new student earns a spot as goalkeeper on the local soccer team.
Loud, pushy new arrival Shane definitely seems to come with an attitude problem in this simple tale, told from the perspective of one of Shane’s teammates and originally published in 2021 in the U.K. A few days later, however, the source of the chip on his shoulder becomes clear when the North Park Juniors take the pitch. When Shane shows up to play, his bossy, verbally abusive stepfather, Mick, is in tow, screaming orders and insults from the sidelines. The story, which is printed with what the publisher calls “dyslexia-friendly fonts and paper tones,” is laid out with extra spacing between the short sentences and paragraphs. The author also takes multiple breaks to examine historical feats and foibles of renowned goalies of the past. The plot goes on to follow a fairly direct course. After the police haul Mick away in the wake of a chair-throwing tantrum, a more emotionally stable Shane shows up the following weekend to perform heroic exploits in a hard-fought climactic match. Physical descriptions in the text are minimal; young players and adults in Chalik’s frequent illustrations are woodenly drawn but feature a mix of light- and dark-skinned faces.
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781454954842
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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