A body-positive story of growing up that’s sure to make a splash.
Tough-talking 12-year-old Natalia never backs down from a challenge.
Whether it’s a fistfight with a boy who is disrespecting her cousin or a swimming race against a much older teen at the city pool, Nat’s confidence and tenacity compel her to finish anything she starts, no matter what the odds. Nat’s parents, a community activist and a college professor, have instilled a strong sense of justice in her and her three older brothers. When she becomes enchanted with Black-owned synchronized swimming team the L.A. Mermaids, she knows she needs to try out—even if her fat body and Latina heritage aren’t the norm for the sport. Her parents veto the idea, citing the dominance in elite synchronized swimming of thin, White girls. In an ill-conceived plan, headstrong Nat decides to join the team anyway and begins learning the sport in secret. Joining the L.A. Mermaids brings her new friends—Daniel, whose race is not specified and who is the sole boy in a female-dominated sport, and Ethiopian American Ayana, who struggles with an overzealous mom. In contrast to these blooming friendships, Nat’s connection with her best friend has frayed over the summer, and she isn’t sure why. She must tame her temper and learn to own her mistakes to keep her relationships with family and friends afloat. Nat’s radical self-acceptance is a beautiful example for readers: Her unapologetic self-love and empathy make her a compelling character.
A body-positive story of growing up that’s sure to make a splash. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9780593323120
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
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