Well-meaning but a miss.
After observing the roosters in his artist grandpa’s backyard, seventh-grader Joe López can’t get enough of these indomitable avians.
His sketchbook is filled with them, and soon his art teacher encourages him to enter one of his pieces in the county fair, but he is distracted by a girl from his past, Kiki, and the school bully. Kiki supports his creativity and backs him up when he decides to emulate the courage of a rooster and finally confront Martín. Things take a turn for the worse, however, as his nemesis swears revenge on Joe for foiling a lunch-money shakedown. Grandpa Jessie teaches Joe about the power of standing his ground, and when the students unite against their tormentor, he runs away and everyone cheers for “Rooster Joe.” Garza’s bold, black-and-white illustrations reflect the age level of both the protagonists and the target audience—preteen Latino boys. This bilingual chapter book (organized into English and Spanish halves) aspires to be inspirational and empowering, but it comes across as plodding and didactic. The voice vacillates between middle schooler and adult: “there are rules in middle school and what [Gary] is suggesting is just plain taboo. A seventh grade boy has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting an eighth-grader to be his girlfriend.” In addition, Joe’s narration is constantly sidelined by hard-to-chew chunks of preachy exposition. The story lacks focus, and the message’s delivery is heavy-handed. Garza’s Maximillian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel is a far superior effort.
Well-meaning but a miss. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55885-835-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable.
A reward of $5,000,000 almost ruins everything for two seventh graders.
On a class trip to New York City, Felix and Benji find a wallet belonging to social media billionaire Laura Friendly. Benji, a well-off, chaotic kid with learning disabilities, swipes $20 from the wallet before they send it back to its owner. Felix, a poor, shy, rule-follower, reluctantly consents. So when Laura Friendly herself arrives to give them a reward for the returned wallet, she’s annoyed. To teach her larcenous helpers a lesson, Laura offers them a deal: a $20,000 college scholarship or slightly over $5 million cash—but with strings attached. The boys must spend all the money in 30 days, with legal stipulations preventing them from giving anything away, investing, or telling anyone about it. The glorious windfall quickly grows to become a chore and then a torment as the boys appear increasingly selfish and irresponsible to the adults in their lives. They rent luxury cars, hire a (wonderful) philosophy undergrad as a chauffeur, take their families to Disney World, and spend thousands on in-app game purchases. Yet, surrounded by hedonistically described piles of loot and filthy lucre, the boys long for simpler fundamentals. The absorbing spending spree reads like a fun family film, gleefully stuffed with the very opulence it warns against. Major characters are White.
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable. (mathematical explanations) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17525-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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