An insightful coming-of-age novel.
An awkward Pakistani Muslim sixth grader learns to love every part of herself.
For her first few weeks at Greenhill Middle School, all Alina Butt wants to do is to move home to Pakistan. Her family has moved cities several times since they immigrated to England in 1998, three years ago, and Alina still longs for her beloved family and misses being in a place where she fits in—and where her surname isn’t material her classmate Adam Atkins can use to torment her. Things start looking up when she befriends Emma, Kayla, and Vaani, who instantly understand her quirky humor and who bond over a shared love of the Spice Girls. With their help, Alina tries out for the lead in the school play, a feminist adaptation of Cinderella. But when Emma and Adam are cast as the leads and Alina is cast as a mouse, her jealousy threatens to undo all the progress she’s made. It’s only after a series of unlikely encounters with bullies—Alina’s sister’s bully and her own—that Alina realizes that she’s growing into someone she just might like. In this charming, tightly plotted debut, Alina’s witty, vulnerable narratorial voice guides readers through her intensely authentic personal evolution. The plot is further served by a cast of supporting characters, each of whom is full of surprises. Adam and Emma read White, Vaani is of Indian heritage, and Kayla is described as having curly black hair.
An insightful coming-of-age novel. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9781459834910
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Enigmatic enemies, sabotage, space travel, and short, bone-wracking bits of time travel make for a banging adventure.
All remaining humans are leaving Mars for a distant planet, but departure day goes sideways.
The “burning husk” of Earth fell into the sun five years ago, and Mars is about to become uninhabitable. The Scorpius leaves today with the last 100 million passengers. Thirteen-year-old Liam’s sad to go: he was born on Mars and identifies as a Martian, unconcerned that his Earth heritage is “Thai, Irish, Nigerian, Texan, and like ten more.” His parents and his friend Phoebe’s parents are rushing the final research for terraforming their destination planet when a radioactive explosion, complete with mushroom cloud, blows the lab to bits. The Scorpius departs with Liam’s sister and the 100 million aboard, leaving Liam, Phoebe, and a highly skilled robot functionally alone (their parents are alive but unconscious)—can they catch the Scorpius? Emerson’s story is fast, exciting, and terrifying, involving spacecraft of many sizes, travel through space, more explosions, an alien gadget that shows Liam the near future (and that extraterrestrials exist! Humans hadn’t known), and some shadowy characters. Who’s the blue ET chronologist murdered in Scene 1? Who’s trying to exterminate humankind, and why? How many unrelated ET groups are out there? A stunning reveal at the end will leave readers gasping for the next installment.
Enigmatic enemies, sabotage, space travel, and short, bone-wracking bits of time travel make for a banging adventure. (Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-230671-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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