Move over, Baby-Sitters! There’s a new club in town.
Seventh grader Gigi Shin and her friends come up with an idea to raise money for art camp.
Gigi loves art, but her traditional Korean parents would rather she pursue science or engineering. One day, Gigi and her best friends spot a poster advertising the Starscape Young Artists’ Program, a prestigious summer camp in New York City. It’s a perfect opportunity, but it’s expensive, and none of the girls can afford it. That’s when Gigi comes up with an idea: an after-school tutoring service. Gigi keeps the idea secret from her parents, and though the friends pull it off, Gigi learns a few lessons along the way, including the importance of collaboration, time management, and honesty. While the prose is breezy and readable, reminiscent of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club books, there’s a lot for younger tweens to chew on as Gigi navigates multiple identities: daughter, sister, friend, artist, and entrepreneur. Those who relish stories about older, more independent kids will be pleased. Lee leaves some loose ends unresolved, keeping the focus on Gigi’s journey; future books in the series may shed light on what happens next. There’s racial and economic diversity among the cast.
Move over, Baby-Sitters! There’s a new club in town. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781665939171
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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