A middle-grade cross-genre standout.
In Simone’s novel for middle-grade readers, a grieving girl in the present day makes a connection with a Civil War–era spirit.
Seventh grader Charlotte Cross, who’s grieving the sudden loss of her father, recently moved with her mother from Arizona to Manassas, Virginia. She feels emotionally distanced from her mom but hopes to join the cross-country track team at her new school, where she’s navigating new friendships and an embarrassing crush. Then, one day, while running in a former Civil War battlefield near her house, Charlotte meets a 14-year-old boy in old-fashioned clothes—who strangely keeps vanishing and reappearing. She feels a connection to Jeremy, who may very well be a ghost; she becomes determined to help him in some way. Jeremy lived in Virginia in 1861 with his farming family when news broke that Virginia had seceded from the Union. He believed that he was old enough to fight on the Union side,but his parents were against it. His father planned to join the Union army and needed Jeremy to take care of the farm. Ma, a Quaker pacifist, was entirely against Jeremy signing up; he struggled to manage the farm through a long, difficult war. Jeremy was desperate to become a soldier, which he saw as a way to prove his manhood, and he chafed against the bonds that tied him to home—until an incident forced his hand. Simone’s well-paced middle-grade novel tackles serious topics with care and consideration. The story cleverly balances the past with the present, the supernatural with realism, and action with interiority. Themes of grief, connection, and belonging underpin the narrative, as well. Charlotte’s story is narrated in the first-person present tense, while Jeremy’s is told in third-person past tense—a stylistic choice that effectively highlights the time separating the main characters, as well as their very different experiences of adolescence. Simone’s emotional prose and vivid descriptions (“The pale morning light washed the spring’s colors into gray shadows. Even the sun seemed hesitant to rise that morning”) bring the narrative to life, right up until the affecting conclusion.
A middle-grade cross-genre standout.Pub Date: May 15, 2023
ISBN: 9798987869918
Page Count: 182
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
