Families are complicated, but gardening usually isn’t.
When Chloë and her father move from Montreal to Victoria, Chloë doesn’t think it will be for forever. After all, her whole life is back in Montreal.
Her mom, her best friend, and her city neighborhood are all waiting for her to return, so she doesn’t feel she needs to work too hard to settle into the new place. But she does want to learn more about her grandfather, Uli. Her dad and Uli don’t get along well, and no matter how many times Chloë asks to be told why, her dad always puts her off. But when she starts spending time with Uli in his garden, where he grows seeds that have been given to him by many different people, she wants to know even more. Perhaps best known for her nonfiction, Mulder carefully crafts a book about family and vegetables that offers a glimpse into the ways in which gardening can become something more than simply growing plants. The scenes of Chloë and her grandfather are poignant and realistic and might even spark some agricultural interest in middle-graders. But the rather slow-burning narrative sometimes gets bogged down with internal reflection, and the slow reveal of plot points can occasionally feel stagnant. However, the characters (who are mostly white, as a friendly Japanese-Canadian neighbor points out) are warm, and the concept of seed vaults is made wonderfully personal.
Families are complicated, but gardening usually isn’t. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1679-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal.
Despite poor first impressions, an aggressive new student earns a spot as goalkeeper on the local soccer team.
Loud, pushy new arrival Shane definitely seems to come with an attitude problem in this simple tale, told from the perspective of one of Shane’s teammates and originally published in 2021 in the U.K. A few days later, however, the source of the chip on his shoulder becomes clear when the North Park Juniors take the pitch. When Shane shows up to play, his bossy, verbally abusive stepfather, Mick, is in tow, screaming orders and insults from the sidelines. The story, which is printed with what the publisher calls “dyslexia-friendly fonts and paper tones,” is laid out with extra spacing between the short sentences and paragraphs. The author also takes multiple breaks to examine historical feats and foibles of renowned goalies of the past. The plot goes on to follow a fairly direct course. After the police haul Mick away in the wake of a chair-throwing tantrum, a more emotionally stable Shane shows up the following weekend to perform heroic exploits in a hard-fought climactic match. Physical descriptions in the text are minimal; young players and adults in Chalik’s frequent illustrations are woodenly drawn but feature a mix of light- and dark-skinned faces.
Simplistic, but a straight shot on goal. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781454954842
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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