The theme of recovery after deep trauma shines brightly.
After Ma nearly drowns one fateful night, a North Carolina boy doesn’t go outside.
Everything 11-year-old James Henry needs to do, including taking imaginary trips into the night skies with twin sister Hattie, he can do at home. He endures the stares and gossip of folks as they pass his house. Nobody but he knows what happened that night, but as long as he has the safety of home, as long as nobody touches him, and as long as he can avoid his own guilt, he’s fine. But Hattie is done with James Henry’s being “just fine.” A rare blue moon is coming, and she thinks that it’s time for him to go out and meet it. Everyone knows that things can change and worlds can shift under the blue moon. Using short poems, the tale takes readers on a soul-twisting journey once James Henry, a Black boy living during Jim Crow, leaves home with his sister and her friend Lottie Jean. Together they face off against racists and bullies. Readers also get joyous representations of Black children thriving in the outdoors: swimming, eating well, and using knowledge passed down to them to move forward. This is when these characters start to take full form, but it’s interrupted by the mystery of what really happened to James Henry’s Ma, something that haunts the storyline in confusing and distracting ways.
The theme of recovery after deep trauma shines brightly. (author’s note) (Verse historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780593480984
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A warm bundle of holiday cheer.
In a funny, feel-good tale, 12-year-old twins separated at birth meet by chance and try to pull off a family switch during the December holidays.
The girls, who are cued white, agree that it would be a delicious prank, but each has a personal motive, too: Aviva Davis, who was adopted by a culturally Jewish mom and a Black dad who was raised Christian, wonders what it’s like to celebrate Christmas. Budding author Holly Martin, who was adopted by a white-presenting single mom, sees a golden opportunity to gather experiences for a school writing assignment about facing her fears. In a plot as sweet as a Hanukkah jelly doughnut and twisty as a Christmas cinnamon roll, the pair just manages to bail one another out of a string of sticky situations—both hilarious and otherwise. They both learn something of the customs and meaning of the two holidays while working through tears and laughter—not to mention conflicts sparked by their very different personalities. Everything culminates in a holiday performance at a local senior center that will have readers rising up to cheer them on. Though their history remains tantalizingly mysterious, for the protagonists, who narrate alternating chapters, it’s mission accomplished and more: Aviva emerges feeling more secure in her Jewish identity, while anxious Holly discovers unexpected depths of courage.
A warm bundle of holiday cheer. (song lyrics) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250360670
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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