A timely, feel-good tale of learning to accept oneself and others.
Junior high students reinvent themselves when they attend virtual school.
Amid a pandemic (Covid-19 is implied), three alternating narrators enroll in Balderstein Virtual Junior High. But this year, remote learning packs a twist: Students attend classes via virtual reality and interact with one another by creating avatars…or disguises. Bradley Horvath is fat and, thanks to bullies, has had trouble making friends. But as pink-haired K-pop fan Daebak, maybe he’ll impress his classmates with his cool dance moves. Lacrosse star Hunter Athanasopoulos appears as himself—but his long-haired blond avatar and competitive attitude hide his worries about losing his hair to alopecia. Edelle Dahan-Miller was a popular trendsetter at school thanks to social media, but her mother insists she present herself sans filters after learning of a misogynistic student website that ranked girls’ appearances. Now unrecognizable and calling herself Vanya, who is Edelle without her friends’ admiration? When a gaming tournament forces the trio to work together, they make surprising discoveries about themselves and each other. Though the ending is somewhat pat and the characters somewhat two-dimensional, the protagonists’ evolving views of friendship and self-acceptance will resonate with readers who struggle to be—or to find—themselves. Warmly supportive parents are a welcome bonus. Edelle is Palestinian and assumed White; Hunter’s surname suggests Greek heritage; and Bradley is cued White. Secondary characters are racially diverse; one has cystic fibrosis. Illustrations not seen.
A timely, feel-good tale of learning to accept oneself and others. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63993-053-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
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