This ongoing coming-of-age saga proves as engaging and irresistible as ever.
Life just isn’t getting any easier for the young eponymous hero in this installment of Pollack’s middle-grade series.
Summer vacation is coming up, but Jillian “Jelly Bean” Kramer has received bad news: Britney, her best friend, will soon be moving away from Springdale, New Jersey, to live with her father in Brooklyn. Jelly Bean still has people she can confide in, including her older brother (one of three), Sam, and Grandma, her current roommate. But Sam is busy studying hard for college and working a part-time job, and Grandma’s new relationship with her boyfriend, Bob, could mean she’ll be leaving the Kramer household. Once Jelly Bean’s fifth-grade year begins, she finds herself dealing with friends who are no longer chummy. Nevertheless, she keeps her head up, taking on a science class experiment, trying out a brand-new sport, and offering comfort to someone who suffers a tragedy. And despite Jelly Bean having only just met her, Carolee, who’s dating the fifth-grader’s beloved Uncle Jack, is readily available for much-needed advice. Pollack’s recurring character, in her third outing, is evolving—Jelly Bean, while not immune to snarky remarks, now handles mean girls with confidence. Her typically obnoxious brother Joel is also “getting much more mature,” or so he claims, and Jack, who’s had problems in the past, enjoys a healthy relationship with Carolee. The narrative, as in the previous entries, is relaxed (“The pancakes were delicious. Everyone ate them with gobs of syrup. Jelly Bean ate till she was full”), even as it tackles real-world issues (for example, Britney, as the only Black girl among her friends, feels she doesn’t “fit in”). Readers will eagerly anticipate more from this wonderful protagonist, her family, and her dog, Roger-Over, who’s always there to lend a furry ear.
This ongoing coming-of-age saga proves as engaging and irresistible as ever.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781787883369
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Nightingale Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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