A suspenseful mystery novel with a carefully and convincingly drawn protagonist.
An autistic girl solves mysterious codes as she and her friends try to retrieve magical artifacts.
Emma Avery anxiously enters seventh grade at a new school, Afton Academy. Her stepmom, Jennifer, expects that there she’ll receive “speech therapy and counseling and a bunch of other stuff,” and Emma finds Jennifer’s relentless positivity annoying. Popular classmate Nate Lin notices Emma’s code-breaking talents and invites her to join his group of friends, who call themselves the Codebreakers. At first, white-presenting Emma’s social anxiety takes over, but as she proves her abilities, her new friends reveal the secrets of Sablewood, a mysterious local 19th-century village. The racially diverse Codebreakers hope to find magical objects hidden in Sablewood by decoding carvings in the ruined village’s stones. Emma’s friendship instincts have been wrong before, and she’s unsure whether to trust them now. She sometimes imagines how easy life would be for “Other Emma,” one without autism, but as the storyline progresses, her interactions and internal monologues show her many strengths and contributions. Diagrams demonstrate how some ciphers work, which may encourage further exploration, and a bonus cipher for readers to solve adds to the fun. One subplot introduced at the beginning of the story disappears without resolution, but the main storyline progresses cohesively, leaving just enough suspenseful loose ends to pique readers’ interest for the next series entry.
A suspenseful mystery novel with a carefully and convincingly drawn protagonist. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781324083559
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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