A poignant trip.
Julia’s father, David, believes he was abducted from their backyard by aliens a few years earlier.
Julia is dealing with the reality that her parents are separated and her dad’s now obsessed with the paranormal. The father-daughter duo are headed to Roswell, New Mexico, for a festival celebrating the anniversary of the famous UFO crash. Thoughtful, self-conscious Julia shares David’s passion, to the perplexity of her overprotective mom and her best friend, Sara, even turning down a trip to Hawaii with Sara’s family in favor of Roswell. Fellow young tourist Josh and his abductee parents give Julia new perspectives on her relationships and the unusual world David has brought her into. Miller paints David and the other abductees with compassion, never judging or pathologizing them even when noting the damage their preoccupations cause their loved ones. Julia’s dad is fun and kind, and she shares good times with him—but he’s also not steadily employed, has abandoned his former hobbies, and forgets things that matter to her. There’s melancholy alongside the cheerful, animated character design and beautiful Southwestern landscapes with their vivid, inky starlit skies and luminous sunrises. The story ultimately doesn’t settle on easy answers when asking what it means to care about someone who believes something that you’re beginning to doubt. Julia and her parents read White; Josh has light brown skin and black hair.
A poignant trip. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780316591874
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Not the most satisfying wrap-up, but it’s always good to spend time in the world of this series.
Beloved gorilla Ivan becomes a father to rambunctious twins in this finale to a quartet that began with 2012’s Newbery Award–winning The One and Only Ivan.
Life hasn’t always been easy for silverback gorilla Ivan, who’s spent most of his life being mistreated in captivity. Now he’s living in a wildlife sanctuary, but he still gets to see his two best friends. Young elephant Ruby lives in the grassy habitat next door, and former stray dog Bob has a home with one of the zookeepers. All three were rescued from the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. Ivan’s expanded world includes fellow gorilla Kinyani—the two are about to become parents, and Ivan is revisiting the traumas of his past in light of what he wants the twins to know. When the subject inevitably comes up, Applegate’s trust and respect for readers is evident. She doesn’t shy away from hard truths as Ivan wrestles with the fact that poachers killed his family. Readers will need the context provided by knowledge of the earlier books to feel the full emotional impact of this story. The rushed ending unfortunately falls flat, detracting from the central message that a complex life can still contain hope. Final art not seen.
Not the most satisfying wrap-up, but it’s always good to spend time in the world of this series. (gorilla games, glossary, author’s note) (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780063221123
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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