Start with a clever premise: the title. Go to Chickadee Court, where each holiday season, a dozen houses decorate the yards with a stanza from the favorite carol and someone is stealing the birds from the displays. Cast Alex Parakeet and his best friend Yasmeen as junior detectives, Luau the cat as an ace detective, and Alex’s mom, as a real police detective. Add a collectible-toy fad of Super Macho Military Mice (Ulysses S. Mouse, General Douglas MacMouse, etc.), and ho, ho, ho, you’ve got a super-charged, easy mystery that’s genuine fun. Who’s the culprit—the old guy who doesn’t celebrate Christmas? or the kid who can’t have Mice? or the owner of the toy store, robbed of all its Mice? And what do the Mice have to do with the birds? Readers will pick up clues along with Alex and Yasmeen and the ending leaves room for another mystery with them. Breezy and humorous, with chatty dialogue and huge kid appeal, this holiday-themed story guarantees laughs for every season. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-8234-1788-3
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other.
A boy with ADHD explores nature and himself.
Eleven-year-old Jake Rizzi just wants to be seen as “normal”; he blames his brain for leading him into trouble and making him do things that annoy his peers and even his own parents. Case in point: He’s stuck spending a week in rural Oregon with an aunt he barely knows while his parents go on vacation. Jake’s reluctance changes as he learns about the town’s annual festival, during which locals search for a fabled turtle. But news of this possibly undiscovered species has spread. Although Aunt Hettle insists to Jake that it’s only folklore, the fame-hungry convene, sure that the Ruby-Backed Turtle is indeed real—just as Jake discovers is the case. Keeping its existence secret is critical to protecting the rare creature from a poacher and others with ill intentions. Readers will keep turning pages to find out how Jake and new friend Mia will foil the caricatured villains. Along the way, Bramucci packs in teachable moments around digital literacy, mindfulness, and ecological interdependence, along with the message that “the only way to protect the natural world is to love it.” Jake’s inner monologue elucidates the challenges and benefits of ADHD as well as practical coping strategies. Whether or not readers share Jake’s diagnosis, they’ll empathize with his insecurities. Jake and his family present white; Mia is Black, and names of secondary characters indicate some ethnic diversity.
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other. (Adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781547607020
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Centers on a cute, evergreen premise but suffers from minimal character development.
Some say that Christmas is the happiest time of year—but that’s not true for Jordan and Stevie Clementine.
The 10-year-old fraternal twins face yet another fractured holiday with not even a Christmas tree in sight. Their parents, born Billy Clement and Sam Valentine, dated briefly but never married and, as friends, have raised the girls, even taking on their melded last name. The sisters dream of a Christmas with all four Clementines together, singing carols and playing games, but musician Billy is on tour much of the year, and community center director Sam is especially busy with work around the holidays. The white-presenting girls spend each Christmas with their dad in the shabby family-owned motel, along with their uncle, aunt, and 15-year-old cousin (who ruined last Christmas by revealing the truth about Santa). This year, Stevie and Jordan hatch plans to get their parents to remember past happy Christmases and want to spend the holiday together. Fortuitously for the twins, a flood from a burst pipe at the local dog shelter brings dogs to the motel—leading cynophobic Billy and the girls to stay with Sam. The snowy, small-town Saskatchewan setting feels authentic, with many cultural details that add interest; however, the girls’ dual narrations are difficult to distinguish despite their opposite and rather one-note personalities and the supporting cast is similarly two-dimensional. Musician Quin’s solo debut, a series opener, features festive spot art by Ollerton.
Centers on a cute, evergreen premise but suffers from minimal character development. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780374392345
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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