Precise, subtle details and complete emotional honesty bring these characters to life from the first page.
A wealthy girl’s life unravels when her mom is accused of embezzlement.
Unlike her two older siblings, 12-year-old Mavis has never questioned her lavish life—full of vacations and shopping trips, not to mention a home in one of Chicago’s richest neighborhoods. She also doesn’t doubt her position as the most-favored child, her wildly successful mother’s “mini-me.” Then one day, her mother disappears, and the FBI shows up. With their home seized and bank accounts frozen, Mavis’ stay-at-home dad is forced to beg for help from the once-close sister he’s ignored for the last 18 years. The shattered family moves into Aunt Melissa’s basement in a small town south of Somewhere, Illinois. Resilient Mavis makes a friend and starts a babysitting business. She also starts receiving postcards that lead her and her siblings to track their mother down. Complex, fully defined characters, including Mavis’ genuinely narcissistic mom and well-meaning but initially passive dad, plus a nuanced, realistic portrayal of a family putting itself back together, take what could have been a standard riches-to-rags story and turn it into a thoughtful exploration of class, love, and relationships. As Mavis gradually reframes her memories and expectations, she comes to treasure the rest of her family. Major cast members read white.
Precise, subtle details and complete emotional honesty bring these characters to life from the first page. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: April 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780807577141
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This delightful debut welcomes readers in like a house filled with love.
A 13-year-old biracial girl longs to build the house of her dreams.
For Lou Bulosan-Nelson, normal is her “gigantic extended family squished into Lola’s for every holiday imaginable.” She shares a bedroom with her Filipina mother, Minda—a former interior-design major and current nurse-to-be—in Lola Celina’s San Francisco home. From her deceased white father, Michael, Lou inherited “not-so-Filipino features,” his love for architecture, and some land. Lou’s quietude implies her keen eye for details, but her passion for creating with her hands resonates loudly. Pining for something to claim as her own, she plans to construct a house from the ground up. When her mom considers moving out of state for a potential job and Lou’s land is at risk of being auctioned off, Lou stays resilient, gathering support from both friends and family to make her dream a reality. Respicio authentically depicts the richness of Philippine culture, incorporating Filipino language, insights into Lou’s family history, and well-crafted descriptions of customs, such as the birdlike Tinikling dance and eating kamayan style (with one’s hands), throughout. Lou’s story gives voice to Filipino youth, addressing cultural differences, the importance of bayanihan (community), and the true meaning of home.
This delightful debut welcomes readers in like a house filled with love. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1794-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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