Disappointingly superficial
A socially awkward preteen named Lindsay emerges from a superhero fantasy world to make friends and become a BMX queen.
When Lindsay’s parents announce that they are going on an archaeological dig in Estonia, she can hardly believe her luck. She is sure to find a hidden amulet on their assignment that will finally reveal her superpowers, unleashing the fearless girl underneath her shy, bilingual facade. Instead, they tell her that she will be staying with her cousin and archnemesis, Phoebe, the tough-dressing and tattooed daughter of her tía Maria. All at once, she has to say goodbye to her house, her parents, and her comic books for a summer adventure that will push her to athletic new heights and force her to admit how wrong she was about her cousin’s dark nature. Getting to know the real Phoebe means attending her BMX classes at an indoor track named Joyride, where Lindsay enters an all-gender bike-jumping competition. While Lindsay stops judging Phoebe for her punk style of dress, she remains preoccupied with external appearances and popularity throughout the novel, undergoing a makeover in an attempt to fit it. Dressing for a training session, she reflects that “the hat makes me feel like I actually belong on the tracks at Joyride.” The author uses clothing styles and stereotypes in place of character development throughout, defeating the point of Lindsay’s earliest lesson. Biracial Lindsay’s mom is Mexican, and her father is white; she and Phoebe both have light skin and brown hair.
Disappointingly superficial . (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63565-277-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Rodale Kids
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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