Sure to please anyone with a puckish sense of humor or a hankering for innocent prank ideas. (Fiction. 9-12)
Would you want to join the League of Pickle Makers?
Sixth-grader Ben Diaz is not a troublemaker. (His best friend Hector’s grandmother is the persnickety principal of Fountain Point Middle School; troublemaking is inadvisable.) Ben does think harmless pranks enhance the school experience, though. So when he sees an ad for thousands of free ball-pit balls, he responds and fills his homeroom. It’s so much fun he starts a club of pranksters (by invitation only). The Prank and Trick Association (P.T.A.) masquerades as the League of Pickle Makers (’cause who would want to study veggie brining after school?). Several pranks later, the school’s abuzz, and the principal is cheesed off. Success! However, the exclusivity of the club jeopardizes Ben’s friendship with Hector, whose grandmother can get him to confess to anything. And then a rogue prank threatens to expose them all. Baker’s debut, with genial black-and-white illustrations by Probert, is a gently sarcastic, multicultural tale. The characters and conflicts are stock but no less entertaining for it. (The associated website with passwords and chat boards was not seen, but it sounds like a promising addition.)
Sure to please anyone with a puckish sense of humor or a hankering for innocent prank ideas. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59643-765-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
