Darkness and light interplay with perfection.
A 13-year-old girl growing up in Southern California is keeping secrets—until a sudden death in the family forces her to reckon with them.
Fallon Little was 5 when she had a life-changing experience that resulted in a facial injury, requiring her to undergo four reconstruction surgeries, spend months in the hospital, and do physical therapy. Now in seventh grade, Fallon is cast as the lead in their school play, Hello, Dolly!, along with her “second-best friend,” Kaia. Her other best friend, Trent, is the only person she’s opened up to about the terrifying attack, but the upcoming funeral becomes a catalyst for her to consider revealing the truth to her family. On top of everything, Fallon’s mom has been sick (and numerous doctors have failed to explain her frequent “Crash Days”) and she must process the news that her infuriating aunt is moving in with them. The short chapters with pithy titles build intrigue and momentum, especially as Fallon advocates for changes to the play, which she argues promotes gaslighting; her campaign causes tension with Kaia. The story’s pitch-perfect tone balances sad and funny moments impeccably. Fallon demonstrates incredible depth and a rollicking sense of humor. Her return to therapy (despite skepticism based on previous failures) is instrumental to her reckoning with her secrets. Most characters are white, and Kaia is one of the few Black students.
Darkness and light interplay with perfection. (content note, author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780316570800
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
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
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
