A quiet winner for animal lovers and fans of realistic fiction.
A girl’s telepathic connection to a stray dog helps her process change.
Fifth grader Sadie Mitchell-Rosen is feeling frustrated. Her best friend has moved away, she and her brother can’t get along, and her moms are trying to hide her grandfather’s worsening dementia from her. She doesn’t know how to feel about the new IEP for her processing disorder, which sometimes makes focusing difficult. But everything changes when she discovers an injured dog named Dewey in the woods. They are able to communicate telepathically, and Sadie learns from Dewey that she has one week to be claimed by her owners from the kennel at Sadie’s Mom’s vet clinic before being euthanized for aggression. Making it her mission to rescue Dewey, Sadie recruits her Gramps, who has just moved in with her family, and a classmate she used to dislike. While there are plenty of bumps along the way, the happy, hopeful ending is satisfying. Sadie’s first-person narration balances action and introspection, creating a thoughtful exploration of interpersonal relationships and what it means to do right by others and ourselves. Sadie and Dewey’s telepathic connection is never explained or deeply explored, but readers who feel profound bonds with their pets won’t be bothered by this. Sadie’s family is described by skin tone: Mama reads as White, Mom has dark-brown skin, and Sadie’s and her brother’s complexions are somewhere in between.
A quiet winner for animal lovers and fans of realistic fiction. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-20491-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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