A birthday slumber party becomes the undoing of a clique when one of the guests is abducted. Gray is a member of the Lucky Seven, a poisonous preteen clique presided over by Martha, who clearly (and viciously) enjoys the power accorded her by her popularity. Gray’s membership—indeed, everyone’s—depends on Martha’s whim. The slumber party has started off badly for Gray, though, as her mother, distracted by chemotherapy, has packed the wrong sleeping bag. When a confused woman appears at the birthday party, Gray is happy to convince herself that she is an aide sent to fetch her home and escapes the party—only to be taken on a terrifying ride to the woman’s house, from which she has no immediate means of escape. Meanwhile, at the party, Gray’s absence occasions a subtle but cataclysmic shift in the forces that hold the clique together; Martha is top dog no more. Shifting perspectives effectively capture the emotions and motivations of key members of the Lucky Seven, allowing the reader to examine the group’s dynamics. Griffin has a keen eye for the cruelty of the middle-schooler, but this fails where Amandine (2001) succeeded, due to its split narrative. When Gray leaves the party, the story splits into two pieces—Gray’s own bizarre adventure, and the power struggle within the clique—and Gray’s own development as an individual is not sufficiently paralleled by the development of the rest of the group to make the counterpoint between the two stories work. For a more effective dissection of the nature of cliques, try Amy Goldman Koss’s The Girls (2000). (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-23782-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable.
A reward of $5,000,000 almost ruins everything for two seventh graders.
On a class trip to New York City, Felix and Benji find a wallet belonging to social media billionaire Laura Friendly. Benji, a well-off, chaotic kid with learning disabilities, swipes $20 from the wallet before they send it back to its owner. Felix, a poor, shy, rule-follower, reluctantly consents. So when Laura Friendly herself arrives to give them a reward for the returned wallet, she’s annoyed. To teach her larcenous helpers a lesson, Laura offers them a deal: a $20,000 college scholarship or slightly over $5 million cash—but with strings attached. The boys must spend all the money in 30 days, with legal stipulations preventing them from giving anything away, investing, or telling anyone about it. The glorious windfall quickly grows to become a chore and then a torment as the boys appear increasingly selfish and irresponsible to the adults in their lives. They rent luxury cars, hire a (wonderful) philosophy undergrad as a chauffeur, take their families to Disney World, and spend thousands on in-app game purchases. Yet, surrounded by hedonistically described piles of loot and filthy lucre, the boys long for simpler fundamentals. The absorbing spending spree reads like a fun family film, gleefully stuffed with the very opulence it warns against. Major characters are White.
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable. (mathematical explanations) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17525-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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