Genial and pleasant but not exceptionally compelling despite dramatic scenarios.
Lizzy is a big believer in signs. She’s convinced they portend the future—good or bad—if she can just interpret them correctly.
Ever since her mother lost an unborn baby after a car accident two years earlier, Lizzy, 12, has been searching for signs that good luck will come, especially now that her mother’s next pregnancy is almost over. After she and her best friend discover a runaway 11-year-old, Charlotte, hiding in an abandoned house, the pair team up to help the child. Charlotte has left home to try to force her separated parents to rethink divorce plans. But since the runaway might just represent good luck (because she has a four-leaf clover drawn on her hand), Lizzy does little to encourage the girl to go home, instead hiding her in her own closet. Only after she finally reveals to Charlotte the good-luck-charm role she’s inadvertently playing does the younger girl decide to return home. Gentle Lizzy’s need for a happy outcome for her mother makes her reliance on magical thinking plausible, although occasionally, her first-person narration leans toward a more authorial voice than appropriate. While Lizzy is fully realized, other characters are mostly distinguished by being exceptionally nice, limiting conflict in the tale. The book assumes the white default.
Genial and pleasant but not exceptionally compelling despite dramatic scenarios. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6502-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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