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JAMIE

Excels at being educational without sacrificing charm, humor, or excitement.

When the schools are gender-segregated after fifth grade, which one is a nonbinary kid supposed to choose?

Jamie Rambeau’s a pretty happy kid, growing up in Nottingham, England. It’s not until it comes time to enroll in middle school that they realize they’ll have to pick either the boys’ school or the girls’ school to attend. Almost everyone Jamie previously thought was an ally suddenly seems suspect. Even their affirming, supportive parents want them to “just PICK ONE… Stop attention-seeking.” If that’s how it’s going to be, Jamie decides, they’re just going to have to “speak up”—and they do. All the adults are quite willing to be supportive of a trans student, as long as they can fit that student’s gender into one of two tidy slots. So Jamie begins an activism campaign, which eventually leads to a news helicopter, a police interrogation, and (most importantly) qualified success. Olly, Jamie’s exuberantly gay older brother who enjoys wearing makeup and dresses, is an affectionate, funny delight. Their best friends, Daisy Adewumi and Ash Choudhary, whose own problems Jamie ultimately learns to acknowledge and respect even if they at first see them as not being “real problems,” are supportive and clever. Between chapters, Jamie provides clear, accessible definitions of concepts and terms related to the book’s central themes. Jamie is cued white; there’s ethnic diversity in the supporting cast.

Excels at being educational without sacrificing charm, humor, or excitement. (resources) (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: May 28, 2024

ISBN: 9781499816815

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Yellow Jacket

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

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CHARLOTTE'S WEB

The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...

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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

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J VS. K

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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