It’s a fine friendship story but not a great one.
A boy attends circus school to learn enough to save his family’s circus.
Twelve-year-old Sebastian Kostantinov, only son of ringmaster Dragan Kostantinov, seemingly has no circus talent at all—he can’t juggle, ride unicycles, do acrobatics, or swing on a trapeze. He can’t even manage to be a clown. He cares for the circus animals while they tour Eastern Europe until business falls off and the animals must be sold. Animals are old-school; newer circuses don’t have them. Despite his lack of talent, Seb worms his way into an exclusive Montreal circus school in hopes that he can learn enough to put the family back in the black. He makes friends with two other misfits, Frankie, an Italian parkour specialist, and Banjo, a rustic slackliner. But the circus school itself is in financial straits and seems likely to close—so Seb and his friends plot to save it. Delaney writes smoothly, but her plot has some gaping holes. If the prestigious school carries a waitlist, why not admit more pupils who can pay full tuition? Instead they admit Seb on full scholarship with the odd hope that his presumably wealthy father will become a big donor. The boarding school scenes tread very familiar ground, and the circus acts never quite come alive. The principal cast appears to be white, and the school is not a notably diverse one.
It’s a fine friendship story but not a great one. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-14-319850-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Random House Canada
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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
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