This won’t fly off shelves, but it’ll be just the right mirror for a very particular reader.
Fantasy with a STEM infusion.
Alma has what her family calls “episodes,” or panic attacks, and her parents are worried. They’ve recently moved to Four Points, and they really want Alma to fit in. She doesn’t. But when she sees a flyer for Astronomy Club, she knows it’ll please her parents, and so she goes. There are only two other kids when she gets there: Hugo, who doesn’t attend regular classes because he’s very advanced (and also socially awkward), and Shirin, who is the first person to notice that the flyers seem to have been very specifically placed to attract these particular children. Then there’s the ShopKeeper, whose store is never open but whom Alma is always running into—and who always seems to know what she needs to do next. What’s next is convincing her friends that the other night, Alma saw a star fall from the sky, and as it fell, it became a person—a Starling. This complicated setup gives way to a quest involving astrophysics and cosmology, as the children sneak around town trying to put together all the elements required to send a star back to the sky where she belongs. Both Alma’s severe anxiety and panic attacks and Hugo’s social ineptitude are portrayed sensitively, not as jokes. Alma is white, Hugo appears black, and Shirin is Persian American.
This won’t fly off shelves, but it’ll be just the right mirror for a very particular reader. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-30976-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A deeply imaginative journey that puts the “cat” in cathartic.
A loyal black kitten’s boy is under supernatural attack.
Eleven-month-old Nimbus loves Fletcher, the boy who nursed her back to health following life-threatening injuries. When Fletcher becomes curious about a strange jar and opens it, releasing a terrible goblin, loyal Nim protects Fletcher, taking heavy damage in the process. But Fletcher’s aunt, who’s caring for him over spring break, believes Nim attacked Fletcher and dumps her far from home. Rhett, a stylish rat with star quality, befriends injured Nim and leads her to a witch’s house. While the witch cares for Nim, the witch’s cats (maternal Fern, bookish Rochester, standoffish Bianca, and openly hostile Abraxas) teach Nim important cat skills. She also discovers she has a supernatural ability: In destroying one eye of the nightmare demon in the fight to protect Fletcher, Nim gained its “dream sight.” But she also learns it might come back for Fletcher, who no longer has Nim to protect him, posing a time-sensitive, high-stakes threat. Even though the witch’s home is nice and magic itself seems to be telling her to stay put, Nim wants to find a way back to Fletcher. As a hero, Nimbus is as gritty and determined as she is adorable. Tear-jerker moments explore pet abandonment—readers may want their own pets on hand to hug—all the way through the magical, action-packed finale. Fletcher and the witch read white.
A deeply imaginative journey that puts the “cat” in cathartic. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780062680372
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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
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