A messy, funny, neurodivergent ode to finding your voice and owning your differences.
Uncertain stars find their spotlights one step at a time.
Clay and Kyle are used to operating behind the scenes in their middle school’s drama club. Their creative ambitions snowball from a comedic spring musical audition to performing improv at a local open mic to co-hosting their own podcast. Having the support of their moms and Lettie, the manager of the cafe and local venue above which they live, is a major help. Joking with one another about their neurodivergence is another (Kyle is autistic; Clay has ADHD). During the course of these entertaining antics, Clay crosses paths with musically talented classmate and instant crush, Dania. The anxieties and triumphs of live performance give each of them room to stress as well as shine. Clay’s romantic and aspirational self-doubts become great lessons in self-kindness. Clay is as bold and expressive as her blond mohawk, even if she gets distracted sometimes, while Kyle’s lavender curtain of hair betrays his calmer but just as creative personality. Combined with Dania’s talent for audio production, these eighth graders can take over streaming and bring down any house. Their authentic banter and earnest enthusiasm will turn readers into would-be subscribers to their show. The fluid, animated illustrations emphasize the characters’ facial expressions, and the pastel color palette is fresh and engaging. Clay, Kyle, and their moms read white; Dania and Lettie present Black.
A messy, funny, neurodivergent ode to finding your voice and owning your differences. (author’s note) (Graphic fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780316538930
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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