A moving, humorous exploration of friendship and trust.
After his best friend’s death, a boy vows to continue their UFO investigations.
Thirteen-year-old Sam Kepler Greyson is dealing with “Big Things™”: His Hodgkin’s lymphoma is in remission, but his best friend, Oscar Padilla, recently died of brain cancer. When Sam returns to school, he’s greeted with hostility—thanks to a rumor spread by “former friend, current jerk” Kevin Bellman, who claims that he lied about having cancer. Moreover, he’s partnered with Cat Pellegrini—whose clique peripherally includes Kevin—for eighth grade’s annual California History Project. To cope, Sam imagines Oscar giving him advice. Before his death, Oscar left Sam a message in their UFO notebook: “We are NOT alone in the universe.” Sam finds an unlikely ally in Cat, who’s secretly a fellow UFO enthusiast. As they investigate cryptic clues from a mysterious online contact, their friendship grows, and Sam finally feels like a normal kid—a welcome relief from being treated as fragile or heroic. So how can he tell Cat about Oscar—or the full story of his own cancer? And if Sam tells his moms about the bullying—or the new pain in his chest—how could life ever return to normal? While Bury, herself a cancer survivor, intricately explores Sam’s conflicting emotions, Sam’s occasionally wry narration and imagined banter with Oscar add levity, and his moms are heartwarmingly supportive. Sam and one of his moms are white and Jewish; his other mom is Black.
A moving, humorous exploration of friendship and trust. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063337411
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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