Lighthearted fare for tweens.
The nesties (next-door besties) are back and focused, minus some boy distractions, on changing the location of the seventh grade field trip.
Fonda, Drew, and Ruthie from Girl Stuff. (2021) are still finding their place at Poplar Middle School. This year, Fonda is committed to changing the site of the Seventh Grade Slopover—an overnight field trip to a farm where the students clean out barns. She convinces the principal of the need for a new venue and pitches Catalina Island. Unfortunately, Fonda presents her argument in front of two students who suggest other sites: Henry wants Camp Pendleton, and Ava prefers the set of the TV show Makeover Magic. Now the three are in competition, each trying to get a majority of students behind their choice. For Fonda, winning means not only a less-stinky trip, but a spot out of the shadows cast by her popular older sisters. Ruthie and Drew are slightly less driven, distracted by crushes and their desires to bring their circles of friends together. Thanks to the advice of Fonda’s mother, readers will learn volumes about campaigning. The shenanigans that erupt during the competition add color, as does Fonda’s wordplay. The sibling rivalry, drama between cliques, and early explorations of romance all ring true. Best of all, each of the nesties’ storylines ends on a sweet note. The main cast defaults to White.
Lighthearted fare for tweens. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984815-01-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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