A relatable novel that will encourage readers to fight for their rights.
A seventh grade girl learns to speak up for equity, community, and freedom of expression.
Lotus Bloom is not your typical tween: She wears vintage ’70s clothes, proudly rocks an Afro, and is a gifted violinist. Music is her escape, and she needs it more than ever between her parents’ divorce, her father’s relocation to Paris, a mother who doesn’t understand her, and a strained relationship with her best friend, Rebel Mitchell. Atlantis School of the Arts, Lotus’ new magnet school, allows her to focus on her passion, but Rebel is staying behind in a regular public school. When Lotus is made first-chair violin, she catches the attention of Adolpho Cortez, a ninth grade bully who believes the honor is rightfully his. Having learned to tamp down her feelings, Lotus ignores him despite her friends’ urging her to take action. But when a school administrator cites her Afro as a dress-code violation, Lotus is done with keeping quiet. Ignoring her Granny’s pessimism and her mother’s admonition not to make waves, she speaks up for herself and also joins Rebel’s protest against Miami-Dade County’s inequitable funding of schools in their historically Black neighborhood. Winston employs rich descriptions through Lotus’ first-person narration, conveying her love of music. The text brings themes of racism and protest to the forefront, making it a solid conversation starter. Lotus and Rebel are Black; the rest of the cast is broadly diverse.
A relatable novel that will encourage readers to fight for their rights. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0846-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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