Readers will revel in Frankie and Walter’s cathartic romp and learn much about grief, family, and friendship along the way.
Can spending the night in Ikea cure grief?
For best friends Frankie (white) and Walter (mixed-race, black/white), poring over the Ikea catalog and visiting the Ikea furniture store represents shiny-new, TV-show perfection. When they make plans to spend the night at Ikea (influenced by From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler), they’re not sure exactly why, except that they are looking for something “nicer”: different from their loving but careworn, imperfect homes and lives. Frankie has an additional motive: she’s trying to bring back some of Walter’s shine and enthusiasm after a six-month decline in his “essential Walterness.” Frankie narrates with a mix of spunky honesty, compassion, and self-interest appropriate to a preteen. Her concern for Walter is endearing, and in time it is revealed that Walter’s father died recently. Their night at Ikea is desperate fun, full of mishaps, with unexpected emotional highs and lows. The turning point is when Walter admits that although he is processing his grief for his father, he is being crushed by the burden of comforting his mother. With the help of an understanding security guard who finds them and has a frank discussion with their parents, changes are made that allow the friends to realize that they have everything they need to move forward.
Readers will revel in Frankie and Walter’s cathartic romp and learn much about grief, family, and friendship along the way. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55388-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
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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