Even the quietest readers will cheer.
While finding her own voice, a shy sixth grader speaks up for bullied students.
Grieving the death of her father, Lily must adjust from home-schooling to enrolling in a public elementary school as well. Instantly befriended by Hobart, a gregarious boy who interjects his love for the sport of curling whenever he can, Lily sees that he’s bullied by wealthy classmate Ryan, who also targets her. The quiet, observant tween also can’t help but notice that Skylar (a boy presumably living in poverty because he wears the same clothes and has little to eat at lunch) and Dunya (a refugee from Iraq) are more of Ryan’s victims. Erskine aptly conveys Lily’s inner struggle between her reserved demeanor and her desire to stand up to bullying. Motivating Lily is her deathbed promise to her father to find ways to speak up and make her voice heard. With increasing self-esteem, Lily, along with Hobart, Skylar, and Dunya, not only finds ways to address bullying, but to spark kindness and respect throughout their school. Although the effect can be heavy-handed, the metafiction appearance between chapters of “Libro,” the voice of the physical book, adds humor and draws attention to the literary craft. As Lily takes the biggest chance yet, an open ending lets readers envision her success. With the exception of Dunya, Lily and most of her peers present as White.
Even the quietest readers will cheer. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-305815-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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