A game-changing ace.
As he explores his identity and finds his footing in middle school, a sixth grader stands up to his bully best friend.
White, cisgender boys Rick and Jeff have been best friends since the third grade. When they’re alone, Jeff shares his video games, but at school Jeff picks on other kids and talks about girls with ostentatious lasciviousness. Despite their connection, Rick knows he can’t tell Jeff that he wants to join their school’s Rainbow Spectrum, a safe space for LGBTQIAP+ students, or that he’s questioning his own sexuality. The more Rick learns about himself, the more he realizes he needs to hold Jeff accountable for his behavior. An honest relationship develops between Rick and his cosplay-loving grandfather. Grandpa Ray reassures and supports Rick when he comes out as asexual. Adults in the story model moments of vulnerability and admit mistakes. Gino seamlessly introduces language to describe a variety of sexualities and gender identities through the perspective of Rick, who is learning many of the words for the first time. Although the book shares characters with Gino’s Stonewall Award–winning George (2015), it stands alone. The cast (including students of color) represents a spectrum of genders and sexualities with an emphasis on self-identification and encouragement of exploration.
A game-changing ace. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-04810-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A beautiful, moving mythological adventure.
In a world based on Greek mythology, a 12-year-old aspires to be a Ferryer of the dead but gets off track when she meets a Living girl who’s found her way into the Underworld.
All Senka knows is her existence on an island in the middle of the Acheron River, “smack between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead,” where she’s the ward of Charon, the Ferryer of souls. Her teacher is an enormous raven named Mortimer. After Senka, who presents white, learns the Rules for Ferryers, Charon agrees to her repeated requests and starts training her to become a Ferryer. But when an emergency leads to Senka’s being left alone, she disobeys Charon’s explicit orders, takes the boat out on her own—and quickly learns that ferrying souls is far more complicated than she realized. She encounters dark-haired, brown-skinned Poppy, whose “edges are crisp”—she’s a Living girl who will sacrifice anything to find Joey, her younger brother who died. As Senka tries to convince Poppy to return to the Shore of the Living, the two get stuck in the Underwild, a “lawless place where chaos reigns” that’s filled with innumerable dangers and shrouded in secrets. Senka’s lively first-person narration relates the unexpected friendship that forms through her shared adventures with Poppy as they face mortality and the unknown. Debut author Targosz offers readers a meaningful exploration of grief and its impact on those left behind.
A beautiful, moving mythological adventure. (Fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781665957632
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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