A fast-paced, adventurous journey in search of the truth.
Following his father’s arrest, 12-year-old Andy Carter finds himself stuck in small-town Nyle Park, Ohio.
Andy’s mom left a while ago, so he’s staying with Aunt Nonie while Dad awaits his hearing. After a firecracker gets out of control, accidentally burning down an old barn, Andy faces punishment: helping the barn’s owner, Mr. Gilbert, restore a run-down property he owns in lieu of being sent to juvenile court. While working with grumpy Mr. Gilbert, Andy finds himself becoming intrigued by the story of the house’s previous owner, the mysterious masked performer known as the Red Nave, who captivated people’s imaginations with his amazing magic shows before vanishing. His sudden disappearance, which Mr. Gilbert is obsessed with, occurred after Red Nave supposedly murdered someone. Andy strikes a deal with Mr. Gilbert: If he can discover the magician’s secret identity and determine whether he was responsible for the death, his punishment will be over. But Andy quickly learns that solving a decades-old mystery won’t be easy. His father’s arrest, which Andy feels was unjust, has weakened his trust in the justice system, and, unlike in the city where he lived with Dad, he’s aware that people treat him differently as one of the few Black people in Nyle Park. Ransaw’s fast-paced debut offers an introspective look at dealing with racism and ambiguous grief through the eyes of a preteen. Through an intriguing mystery, the story explores biases and preconceptions.
A fast-paced, adventurous journey in search of the truth. (author’s note) (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781419770135
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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