Interesting premise, labored execution.
A tween girl is obsessed with bringing her sister back from the dead.
Attempting to meld science, magic, and poetry into an uplifting mélange, this story instead labors through a flat-footed plot where little is earned and much is simply declared and whose characters are as two-dimensional as the dead bugs the protagonist collects. Seventh grader Juniper thinks the most important thing in life is science, and her one goal is to catch a Palos Verdes blue butterfly—an endangered species—to add to the collection she and her older sister, Ingrid, began before Ingrid tragically drowned two years earlier. On a class field trip, Juniper leaves the group to chase the butterfly and falls in the water. After being rescued, she finds a rock that glows green in her pocket. (Why? This isn’t explained. But apparently this rock can make plants grow.) Next, Juniper meets a talking lemur who lives in the run-down house next to hers. She also meets scientist and magician Artemis, who lives there too, and together they hatch a plan to bring Ingrid back from the dead. Juniper’s classmate Mateo, the new kid in town, loves poetry and also conveniently turns out to be a magician. Juniper’s first-person, present-tense narration is a series of staccato declarative sentences delivering unearned insights that fail to draw readers into the story. Juniper and her family seem to default to White; Mateo is cued Latine.
Interesting premise, labored execution. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780807549377
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A promising fiction debut.
Family secrets, an unsolved bank robbery, summer on a lake, a treasure island and a first romance are the ingredients for this inviting middle-grade mystery.
Unhappy with his new life and new stepfather in Southern California, 13-year-old Trav runs away to the small town in Minnesota where his dad grew up and his grandmother lives. He quickly learns why his mother won’t talk about his father, who died before he was born. Suspected of having robbed a local bank, the man disappeared in a storm, his boat washed up on an island in the lake. Everyone figures Trav knows where the money is, a theory confirmed when some of the burgled money turns up in local stores after his arrival. Trav manages to convince neighbor kid Kenny and his hot cousin Iz of his innocence, and together, they try to figure out where the loot might have been stashed and who has sent Trav a threatening note. Careful plotting and end-of-chapter cliffhangers add to the suspense. The first-person narration suggests that Trav’s imagination has been fed by too much television, but the imagined threats become frighteningly real as the story progresses. Trav’s voice is believable, Bullard’s Minnesota setting full of convincing detail, and the boy’s hesitant romantic efforts add a pleasant embellishment.
A promising fiction debut. (Mystery. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-544-02900-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Warm, delicious and filling.
What do you get when you take some scrumptious pie recipes, stir in a mix-up of a mystery involving an overweight cat and a legacy, then add a sly satirical nod to the Newbery Medal? This irresistible confection.
In 1955, 10-year-old Alice’s beloved Aunt Polly, the peerless “Pie Queen of Ipswitch,” who has always given away the extraordinary products of her oven simply because it makes her happy, dies. She bequeaths her incomparable piecrust recipe to Lardo, her cat—or does she?—and leaves Lardo to Alice. Thus the stage is set for a rich, layered and funny tale about friendship, family relationships and doing what’s right. The characters are wonderfully drawn. While doing her best to carry on Aunt Polly’s legacy, trying to figure out how to wrest the secret from the cat, dealing with a nefarious woman poking around town and learning about the renowned “Blueberry Medal,” which everyone in town is trying to win, Alice draws closer to her mom, a resolution Aunt Polly would have cherished. Alice and her family eventually discover the solution to the mystery in a plot twist that is both comical and plausible. An epilogue, set in 1995, is deeply poignant and gratifying. In addition to the beautifully wrought story, readers will savor and want to attempt the 14 recipes, each of which precedes a chapter.
Warm, delicious and filling. (recipes, pie credits) (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-27011-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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