Tidy and upbeat.
A mysterious package left on the doorstep holds literal and figurative keys to a preteen sleuth’s shadowy past in this series closer.
Detective skills gained in their two previous cases prove useful to Colin and his partner and best friend, Nevaeh. Haddix pitches the pair into an investigation that, despite Colin’s mother’s resolute stonewalling, uncovers some shocking facts about his recently deceased and previously long-absent father. Fueled by a credible mix of anger at being apparently abandoned and a yearning just to know what happened and what his dad was like, Colin’s inner odyssey makes up the emotional core of the story. But Haddix weaves in a substantial and increasingly suspenseful caper featuring clues found in documents and stored possessions, cold evidence trails to follow, startling revelations of both past misdeeds and unexpected family connections, and (to raise the stakes even more) a stash of money massive enough to put lives in danger. Some clues seem contrived, and the author repetitively makes use of characters asking themselves or others strings of questions. Still, events work out in ways that are both nonviolent and healing, as do certain issues that have formed a continuing theme through the trilogy involving the families of both young leads. Colin and Nevaeh read white, separate members of the supporting cast are Black and Latine, and one of Nevaeh’s brothers is cued as neurodivergent.
Tidy and upbeat. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780063089860
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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
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