A lyrical and sensitively rendered coming-of-age tale.
In former Pixar animator Barillaro’s debut novel, a girl must spend the summer at her grandparents’ Canadian island house when her mother’s pregnancy turns risky.
Although Ava Amato, 11, loves the island, this time she’s preoccupied with worries. Are the twins, in utero, more important than her mother’s life? When Ava witnesses a woodpecker’s death, she believes she is cursed, especially after Nonna tells her that a bird in the house is said to foretell death. Ava makes a deal with the dead bird: Her mother must survive even if the twins don’t. In an effort to stave off the curse, she rescues two robin eggs she finds and raises the babies, with her grandmother’s help. She eventually opens up about the deal to Cody MacDonald, an 11-year-old boy visiting the lake with his dad after his parents’ recent divorce. Though initially she finds him brash, a friendship slowly sparks, and when a perilous situation arises during a big storm, Ava must summon her swimming skills and courage to save the day. Warm intergenerational relationships, strongly drawn characters, lyrical descriptions of nature, and nuanced depictions of Ava’s worries create an engrossing read that explores the boundary between childhood and adolescence. Ava is of Italian and Korean heritage; Cody presents White. Barillaro's occasional, delicate watercolors and vignettes in the margins accompany this quietly powerful story.
A lyrical and sensitively rendered coming-of-age tale. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781536224542
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
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