A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise.
Hackathon participation is jeopardized by a scheduling conflict.
Latina sixth-grader Sophia Torres is excited about her first hackathon: an all-day coding event with prizes. Each team receives components and modules to build a robot to attempt a maze, so the girls from The Friendship Code (2017) talk algorithms and pseudocode to plan out how they’ll make their Rockin’ Robots entry stand out. Sophia hopes her busy mother will be able to come support her, but instead her parents drop a bombshell: the night before the hackathon registration deadline, they tell her that she must miss it to babysit her sisters (an 8-year-old on the autism spectrum, a 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old). The hackathon has a strict, plot-determined rule: if any registered participant can’t attend, the whole team must withdraw. Sophia gambles her team’s eligibility on her ability to convince her babysitter-averse parents to compromise. After blaming Sophia (saying she should have told the team sooner), they tease her with the possibility of a babysitter: her father gives her an extensive list of chores she must complete for him to “consider” letting her go. Once the team learns, they surprise Sophia by helping her complete her domestic duties and arranging for the babysitter so she can participate. Evidently the moral’s about asking for help; regressive ideas and plot-driven, questionable parenting are never addressed. The diverse cast also includes white, black, and Asian teammates as well as a new-to-the-team girl from Pakistan (who, curiously, gives their robot an Arabic name rather than, say, an Urdu one) and a dark-skinned boy Sophia has an age-appropriate crush on.
A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54252-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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