An intriguing coming-of-age story about adapting to unsought, inescapable change.
A (literally) magical New England summer is the catalyst for reshaping a conflicted Los Angeles teen’s worldview.
Last year, Anna Bell got her first period, was dumped by her best friend, and experienced her parents’ divorce. On her 14th birthday, her mother, Miriam, announces she’s selling the unusual bookstore she can no longer afford to run. Like Miriam’s mystical ability to recommend the one book that will change customers’ lives, the bookstore changes its size and offerings. Despite not being a bookworm, Anna loves the store; it’s her second home. Meanwhile, her dad’s focused on his new tattoo business. Suddenly, Miriam and a dazed Anna head to the family cottage in Rockport, Massachusetts, that Miriam’s inherited. Anna explores the seaside and marvels at the comet and meteors reappearing in the night sky after 28 years. Noticing Anna’s moonstone ring, a stranger tells her moonstones signify a fresh start. That night, she’s befriended by two teens and makes discoveries she hopes can reboot her parents’ marriage. Inconsistency in the fantasy is a weakness, with Miriam’s abilities and the bookstore’s shape-shifting not being integrated into the whole. Readers will spot familiar time-travel tropes long before Anna does. Nonetheless, Anna herself—struggling to accept losses, her life upended by things beyond her control—remains compelling. If knowing her parents love her and care for each other doesn’t heal her grief, finding agency is an empowering first step. Characters are presumed White.
An intriguing coming-of-age story about adapting to unsought, inescapable change. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-19451-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Filled with plenty of volleyball action and lots of heart, too.
Tragedy leads to upheaval, but also growth and new connections, for a teen athlete from Kentucky.
Catherine Griffin has lived in the small town of Danbury for all of her 16 years, and it’s just been her and her mom—no dad in sight. So she’s left reeling when the sudden loss of her mother to a heart attack forces her to move across the country to live with Knox Carter—the father whose last name she never even knew. Cat arrives in Silver Beach, California, clinging to the one thing that provides a feeling of normality: volleyball. It seems that Silver Beach High is well equipped to fill this need in her life, but unfortunately, the sport also seems to attract the popular mean girls, and they have it out for Cat from day one. Her home life isn’t easy either, with restaurant manager Knox, who never married, working late and at times seeming to forget her existence. But she makes a new friend in quirky, artistic June Hoang, who also plays volleyball. This fun and engaging series opener has solid volleyball competition scenes, an appealing underdog plotline around beach volleyball training (Knox was a pro player), a light love interest in the form of surfer Miles, and a likeable protagonist. Most characters present white, and June is Vietnamese American.
Filled with plenty of volleyball action and lots of heart, too. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268458
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
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